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FOOD AND FLAVOR 




A GASTRONOMIC GVIDE 

TO HEALTH AND GCDDIMNG 

BENFQTTFINCKL 



0?e destiny of nations depends upon what and 
fiow fbey est " 

Brittat~Savarm. 




Illvjtv-&i;« & 



^b^rhj S.Q>jkjBt\**w 



NEWYDRKr-IHE CENTOS' CO 



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Copyright, 1913, by 
The Century Co. 



Published, April, 1913 



©CI.A34681.3 
I 



TO 

LUTHER BURBANK 

AND 

HARVEY W. WILEY 

THE TWO MEN 

WHO HAVE DONE MOST 

TO MAKE OUR DAILY FOOD 

PALATABLE AND HONEST 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 3 

Mark Twain's Patriotic Palate — Food Missionaries 
in the Far West — Are Women to Blame? — The 
Danger in our Food — Why the Candy was not 
Eaten — Dr. Wiley's Poison Squad — Condiments versus 
Chemical Preservatives — Scotched, not Killed. 

II VITAL IMPORTANCE OF FLAVOR 40 

Sensual indulgence as a duty — Gladstone and 
Fletcher — The harm done by soft Foods — Epicurean 
delights from plain Food — How flavor helps the 
Stomach — An Amazing Blunder — A new Psychology 
of Eating. 

III OUR DENATURED FOODS 65 

Foul Fowl — The French way versus the American — 
Why do we Eat Poultry? — Is cold storage a Blessing? 
— Spoiling the American Oyster — "Smoked" ham, 
bacon and fish — Flavor in Butter — Sweet Butter versus 
Salt. 

IV THE SCIENCE OF SAVORY COOKING 117 

Desirable raw foods — Flavor as the guiding principle 
— The Philosophy of soup-making and eating — 
Wherein lies the value of vegetables? — Broiling, roast- 
ing, baking, frying — Combining the flavors of meats 
and vegetables — Savory food for everybody — Meat- 
eating of the future — The folly of vegetarianism — 
When to use condiments and sauces — Cook books. 

V A NOBLE ART 152 

The social caste of cooks — Royalty in the kitchen — 
Rossini, Careme and Paderewski — Looking down on 
others — Does cooking Pay? 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

VI THE FUTURE OF COOKING 171 

School girls like it — Boys and soldiers as cooks — Trav- 
eling cooking schools — English school dinners — Prog- 
ress in America — Teaching the art of eating — Real 
epicurism is economical — Fireless cookers — Private 
versus community kitchens — Scientific electric cook- 
ing — Importance of variety in foods. 

VII FRENCH SUPREMACY 210 

Kitchen alchemy — Seven hundred soups — Savory 
sauces — Profitable poules de Brese — Digestive value 
of sour salads — Escarole, tomatoes, artichokes, alli- 
gator pears — Vegetables as a separate course — Paris 
restaurants — Russian and American influences — Pro- 
vincial local flavors — The world's greatest market 
places — Model market gardens — Mushrooms and 
truffles — Training trees for fancy fruits — Bread crust 
versus crumb — How the best butter is made — Cheese as 
an appetizer. 

VIII EPICUREAN ITALY 309 

The cradle of modern cookery — Olive oil and Sar- 
dines — Fried fish and fritta mista — Macaroni, the real 
staff of life — Cooked cheese in place of meat — Birds, 
tomato paste and garlic. 

IX GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES . . . .339 
A cosmopolitan cuisine — Delicatessen stores — Sausages 
and smoked ham — Live fish brought to the kitchen — 
Game and Geese — In a Berlin market — Vienna bread 
and Hungarian flour — German menus on sea and 
land — German, Swiss and Dutch cheeses. 

X BRITISH SPECIALTIES 394 

Thackeray's little sermon — Dr. Johnson and Samuel 
Pepys — The Roast beef of old England — Southdown 
mutton — Wiltshire bacon — Fair play for pigs — 
Grouse and grilled sole — Covent Garden market scenes 
— Marmalades, jams and breakfasts — Restaurants, 
cakes, and plum pudding. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

XI GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 453 

Sweet corn and corn bread — Griddle cakes and maple 
syrup — Apple pie and cranberries — Turkeys, guinea 
fowl and game — Lobsters, scallops, crabs, and fishes — 
Vegetables steadily gaining ground — The fruit-eaters' 
paradise Governmental gastronomy — Burbank's new 
fruits and vegetables. 

XII COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 522 

Palatability decides permanence — Eating with the 
eyes — School girls as pure food experts — Pennywise 
dealers and pineapples — Successful peach-growers — 
Fortunes from bananas and oranges — Melons, honey 
and flavoring extracts — Opportunities for women — 
Feeding flavor into food — Farmers, middlemen, and 
parcel post. 

XIII GASTRONOMIC VALUE OF ODORS 559 

Sweet, sour, salt and bitter — A comedy of errors — How 
flavor differs from fragrance — Important functions of 
the nose — Educating the sense of smell — Coffee, tea 
and temperance. 

INDEX 583 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Fred Harvey 6 "? 

A Matter for the Health Department 201, 

Harvey W. Wiley 26 \y 

The Old-fashioned Way 29 w 

Horace Fletcher 46 ^ 

A French Chef's Culinary Alchemy . 54^ 

An American Quick-Lunch 57* 

How they do it in France 75 v 

Where Smoked Hams were Suspended from the Rafters ... 98 

Before Breakfast in the Garden xxg^ 

Chafing Dish Cooking 149^ 

A fifteenth-century Kitchen in France 162^ 

Cooking Class at the Wadleigh High School 172 */ 

Fireless Cooking in Hawaii 193 V 

The Tour d'Argent and Frederic Delair 217 V 

Car&me 218 v 

Boeuf a la Mode 246 >/ 

Coming to Market, Brittany 263 v 

The World's Greatest Market Place _. . .268^ 

Paris Market Porters 271 v 

Halles Centrales 273 v" 

A bit of the great Paris market 276 ' 

Macaroni Drying .... 322 *S 

Deer in German Forest 369 v/ 

Menus on a German Steamer 382-384 v 

The Boar ... 420 ''-■ 

"Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese" 446 v 

London Bill of Fare 448-449 v 

The Sugar Bush 465 \/ 

Brillat-Savarin 474 v - / 

New York down town Lunch Menu 484-485 \S 

Luther Burbank 510 *y 

Burbank's Spineless Cactus 518 

Chinese Canal .... 556'"" 

Javanese Tea-Picker and Porter .' 578 ^ 



PREFACE: A BOOK FOR EVERYBODY 

IT is not often that an author is so fortunate as to 
have a subject which is of vital importance to 
everybody, without exception. Everybody eats, and 
everybody wants to enjoy his meals; yet few know how 
to get the most benefit and pleasure out of them. The 
French are far ahead of us in this respect; they are a 
nation of gastronomers, understanding fully the impor- 
tance to health and happiness of raising only the best 
foodstuffs, cooking them in savory ways and eating 
them with intelligence and pleasure. One of the main 
objects of the present volume is to show that we have 
the material for the making of an even more gastro- 
nomic nation than the French are, and that Americans, 
especially if caught young, can be taught to eat in a 
leisurely way and to refuse to accept anything that 
lacks appetizing flavor. 

Flavor! In that word lies the key to the whole 
food problem. Undoubtedly the nourishing property 
of food is also of importance; without it we could not 
live. Yet, as Luther Burbank has keenly remarked, if 
we eliminate palatability (that is, flavor) from food, 
it is no more than a medicine, "to be taken because it 
produces certain necessary results." Moreover, a little 



PREFACE 

of this medicine goes a great way. Horace Fletcher 
lived for years on eleven cents a day; and two univer- 
sity professors — Dr. J. L. Henderson of Harvard and 
Dr. Graham Lusk of Cornell — have demonstrated, in- 
dependently, that a dime a day, intelligently expended, 
is enough to keep body and soul together. What more 
we spend on food — and we probably average five times 
that amount — goes chiefly for flavor. It is the flavor 
that makes us willing to pay more for good butter than 
for good oleomargarine, for fresh chicken than for cold 
storage fowl, for Virginia ham than for ordinary ham, 
and so on throughout the list of foods ; for there is no 
difference in nutritive value in any of these cases. 

This being so, it seems passing strange that while so 
many good books have been written on the nutritive 
aspects of foods, mine is the first volume in any lan- 
guage treating specially of this same flavor, on which 
we spend so much of our income, and which is so im- 
portant to our health. The explanation lies in the 
fact that flavor is generally looked upon as something 
merely agreeable — like the fragrance of strawberries, 
or the vanilla extract we put into ice cream — but of no 
vital importance. It was this misunderstanding that 
prevented me from keeping the title "Flavor in Food" 
which I had intended to use. At a conference with the 
publishers we decided that (since, after all, the book 
also discusses many other aspects of the food question), 
it would be wiser to use the title "Food and Flavor." 



PREFACE 

Nevertheless, Flavor (with a big "F" to emphasize its 
importance) is the principal theme, and the most im- 
portant chapters are the second and the last in which 
I discuss its superlative value, not only as the source of 
countless wholesome pleasures of the table, but as a 
guide to health. The gist of the book lies in the sec- 
tions "An Amazing Blunder" and "A New Psychology 
of Eating," in which I have shown that we need flavor 
as much as we need food if we wish to be well; for 
food without flavor is not appetizing; and when food 
is not appetizing it lies in the stomach like lead and 
causes dyspepsia, the national American plague. The 
final chapter considers the important difference between 
appetizing flavor and mere fragrance, the neglect of 
which has created no end of confusion and done so 
much harm. 

In the pages concerned with "Ungastronomic Amer- 
ica" and "Our Denatured Foods," I have dwelt on 
some of the evils which have resulted from the giving 
up of the old-fashioned condiments (especially wood- 
smoke) in favor of the much cheaper chemical pre- 
servatives which denature our food, that is, destroy its 
appetizing flavor, and give rise to countless adultera- 
tions and deceptions. It was not with any "muck- 
raking" intentions that these pages were written, but 
merely to increase the present wholesome discontent 
and pave the way for better things by making it clear 
to all what those better things are, and indicating ways 



PREFACE 

of thwarting the unscrupulous adulterators and deal- 
ers. There is need of a good deal of hard fighting, for 
there are in many towns health officers who thrive on 
"graft" as well as wealthy manufacturers of undesira- 
ble preservatives who prevent the passage or enforce- 
ment of pure food laws; yet I believe the time is not 
very far distant when these two chapters will have 
little more than a historic interest. Pending that 
time, caveat emptor — let the buyer beware. 

The rest of the book is mainly constructive, and 
under the head of "Gastronomic America" I have tried 
to paint a glowing picture not only of present pleas- 
ures of the palate but of keener ones to come, thanks 
to Luther Burbank and other educators of fruits and 
vegetables. Among these educators are the specialists 
of the Department of Agriculture. The Government 
of the United States has done more than that of any 
other country to give useful advice to the growers of 
food products — and to cooks, too! Throughout this 
volume I have missed no chance to call attention to its 
many helpful publications, besides summing up the 
matter under the head of ^Governmental Gastron- 
omy." It is a topic of tremendous importance to 
farmers, vegetable gardeners, dairymen, and all who 
are concerned with the growing or distributing of food 
stuffs. Farming is denned as "cultivating the ground 
in order to raise food" ; and why farmers, quite as much 
as epicures, should be interested in the best foods, I 



PREFACE 

have explained in the section headed "Commercial 
Value of Flavor," with illustrations showing how a 
tiller of the soil can double or quintuple his income or 
even make a big fortune by taking the demand for 
appetizing flavor as a guide. 

Knowing that they do many of these things much 
better in Europe, I made a special gastronomic trip in 
1912 to gather first hand information in the market 
places, gardens and restaurants of France, Italy, Ger- 
many and England. I have dwelt on the good things 
raised and prepared in those countries, such as the 
salads, the poultry, the bread, the butter, the cheeses, 
the wonderful cuisine of France; the olive oil, the 
economical substitutes for meat, and the macaroni (the 
real staff of life) of Italy; the diverse delicatessen of 
Germany (including live fish brought to the kitchen 
and genuinely smoked meats and fish) ; the Wiltshire 
bacon, the Southdown mutton, the cakes and marma- 
lades of Great Britain. Information on many things 
like those, concerning which there is a widespread curi- 
osity, has not before been brought conveniently be- 
tween two covers, and I am sure I need not apologize 
for having followed the example of the gossiping 
Brillat-Savarin, in presenting this information largely 
in the form of a narrative of personal experiences, and 
with pertinent anecdotes. 

To the chapters on the "Science of Savory Cook- 
ing" and "A Noble Art" I wish to call special atten- 



PREFACE 

tion because in them lies, I am convinced, the ultimate 
solution of the urgent problem of domestic help, as 
well as the problem of improving the average Ameri- 
can cuisine, which is a still larger one, because in eleven 
out of every twelve families the women have to do 
their own cooking. Too many women, not to speak 
of men, do not know that cooking really is a science, 
(which electricity will soon make an exact science), 
and the practice of it a fine art, experts in which may 
well look down proudly on the mere factory and shop 
girls who foolishly think they are above them. 
Schools, women's societies, and society women have 
taken up the matter in England as well as in America, 
and great changes are impending — changes which, it is 
hoped, this volume, coming at the "psychological mo- 
ment," will help to accelerate. 



xviii 



FOOD AND FLAVOR 




FOOD AND FLAVOR 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 




MARK TWAIN S PATRIOTIC PALATE 

ARK TWAIN swore by American food 
as he did by the American flag. 
When he got as far as Italy, on the 
trip which resulted in "A Tramp 
Abroad," he became discouraged, wrote 
&>? a homesick panegyric on the good things 
he could not get in Europe, and made a list 
of viands to be ordered by the steamer preced- 
ing his, to await him on his return. Among these 
dishes were fried chicken Southern style, Saratoga 
potatoes, baked apples and cream, hot biscuits, buck- 
wheat cakes with maple syrup, toast, oysters in 
various styles, softshell crabs, terrapin soup, wild tur- 

3 



4 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

key, cranberry sauce, canvasback duck, prairie hens, 
bacon and greens, catsup, green corn, hot corn-pone, 
stewed tomatoes and pumpkin pie. As he lived for 
years thereafter, it is not likely that he carried out his 
program. 

These gastronomic specialties certainly are not to be 
sneered at; European epicures envy us most of them. 
It must be admitted, also, that American cookery has 
made considerable progress in the last decades, and that 
there has been an improvement in eating habits since 
Dickens, in "Martin Chuzzlewit" (1843), described 
the "violent bell ringing"; the "mad rush for the 
dining-room" ; the "great heaps of indigestible matter" 
which "melted away as ice before the sun"; the "dys- 
peptic individuals" who "bolted their food in wedges, 
feeding not themselves, but broods of nightmares." 

Such scenes still occur, but they are no longer typical. 
Nor, perhaps, would Emily Faithful have occasion to- 
day, as she had in 1884, to comment on the "joyless 
American face," due to chronic dyspepsia. We are 
still made unhappy, however, by the "indigestible hot 
bread" and "tough beefsteaks hardly warmed through" 
to which she referred, and by other gastronomic atroci- 
ties. 

We must not overlook the fine cooking done in many 
American private families, hotels, clubs, and restau- 
rants, and we have some good old Maryland, Virginia, 
New England, and San Franciscan traditions to boast 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 5 

of. Moreover, there are not a few who have rea- 
son to think that the culinary low-water mark is to 
be found on English steamships and in English 
inns. On the whole, however, what Pierre Blot wrote 
forty years ago is still true : "American cookery is worse 
than that of any other civilized nation." Our great 
national food expert and reformer, Dr. Harvey W. 
Wiley, put the matter in a nutshell when he said in a 
lecture before the General Federation of Women's 
Clubs, that "there is no country in the world where 
food is so plentiful, and no country in the world where 
it is so badly cooked, as right here in the United 
States." 

FOOD MISSIONARIES IN THE FAR WEST. 

One need not go to France or Austria for a humiliat- 
ing contrast. In one of his books of travel Charles 
Dudley Warner declared that after leaving Phila- 
delphia the tourist "will not find one good meal de- 
cently served" until he reaches Mexico. In a south- 
western railway restaurant a miner once said to me 
he had not eaten such an abominable meal in all the 
years he had spent in the wilderness. To tell the un- 
varnished truth, he used a stronger word than abomin- 
able. One of the details I remember was that the 
tough steak had apparently been fried in the drippings 
from a tallow candle. 

In the same part of the country a great change has 
been brought about by the culinary and executive 



6 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

genius of one man — Fred Harvey. He came to this 
country from England — score one for England! — 
when he was a boy of fourteen, with two pounds in 
his pocket. He got a job on a railway. There were 
no dining cars in those days and although in England 
he had not lived the life of a gourmet he was amazed 
by the wretchedness of the eating houses with their 
canned meats and vegetables, rancid bacon, oilclothed 
tables without napkins and incompetent service. Con- 
vinced that good eating-houses would advertise the rail- 
way and attract travel, he ventured to say so to the 
manager of the Santa Fe Railway, who, fortunately, 
not only approved the suggestion but gave him the 
opportunity to show what he could do. One historian 
relates that the manager "threw his arms around the 
youthful promoter and wept with joy." He had just 
dined at a railway station! 

It was in the year 1876 that Harvey opened his 
first eating-house in Topeka. It made a sensation. 
Others soon were built along the line of the road from 
the Middle West to the Pacific Coast until, in 1912, 
there were a dozen large hotels, sixty-five railway res- 
taurants and sixty dining-cars under the same manage- 
ment. 

That Harvey was a born epicure is evident from the 
fact that when he opened the Montezuma Hotel in 
1882, he would not allow, as the Kansas City "Star" 
tells us, any canned goods to go on the table. He sent 




FRED HARVEY 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 7 

a man to Guaymas and Hermosillo in Old Mexico to 
get fruit, green vegetables, shell fish and other kinds of 
food. A contract was made with the chief of a tribe 
of Yaqui Indians to supply the hostelry with green 
turtles and sea celery. These turtles, which were se- 
cured for $1.50 each, weighed two hundred pounds and 
were full of eggs. Mr. Harvey selected a little pool 
near the hotel where he fattened the turtles. A feature 
of the bill of fare every day was genuine green turtle 
soup and turtle steak. The sea celery used is a spicy 
weed which makes a fine salad. 

Naturally, such delicacies could not be served at 
the ordinary railway restaurants; yet these, too, had 
their pleasant surprises, and were unspeakably superior 
to what the travelers had been obliged to put up with 
in pre-Harvey days. On ordering tea, for example, 
you would get a separate little Japanese pot with the 
steaming infusion freshly made for you. This was as 
far as Harvey could go in these places in carrying out 
the perfect host's maxim that every diner should feel 
as if the meal he eats had been specially prepared for 
him. But there were other details that betrayed 
special intelligence and thought. Thus, in stopping 
one day for supper in one of the Harvey restaurants in 
the sizzling Arizona desert, I was delighted to find the 
table loaded down with the sour things that one craves 
on hot days — diverse vegetable and meat salads. 

One of the amusing details in connection with the 



8 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Harvey organization was that it became known as a 
marriage agency, because the neat and well-trained 
waitresses got married one after another, some of them 
to wealthy ranchmen. 

Of greater importance was the fact that the Harvey 
eating-houses served as schools to all the Southwest, 
bringing about a general reform. The rival railway 
systems, naturally, could not persevere in their bar- 
barian ways. 

Fred Harvey is no more, but his influence survives 
and his name is one to conjure with throughout the 
Pacific slope. 

In the East, also, one comes across a good meal now 
and then in a dining-car or a railroad station. There is 
one, says Edward Hungerford, up in the northern part 
of New York State that has never yielded its suprem- 
acy to any circuit-riding cafe on wheels. When a cer- 
tain high officer of the busy road that spreads itself 
apart at that junction goes up there, he orders the 
cook of his private car to shut up the kitchen. "Do 
you suppose that I would pass by that town," he says, 
"and the best square meal in the whole State?" 

Those things, alas, are exceptional. Taken the 
country through, railway restaurants and diners are to 
this day even worse than the average hotels and board- 
ing houses. Flavorless, unappetizing meats, insipid 
vegetables, doughy pies and soggy cakes are the rule at 
our eating places everywhere. 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 9 

The most astonishing thing about this is that the 
average American enjoys a good meal, if he can get it, 
not a bit less than the average European, as I have 
observed hundreds of times in our own best eating 
houses and in foreign hotels and restaurants during 
ten trips to Europe. And that the capacity to enjoy 
a civilized meal is inherent not only in those who can 
cross the ocean and pay for Parisian dainties, but in 
the humblest tiller of the soil or railway employee, 
was amusingly made manifest to me many years ago 
in the wild and woolly West. I was brought up in the 
village of Aurora, Oregon, which was inhabited chiefly 
by members of a German colony, who differed in no- 
wise from millions of poor but honest men and women 
in the Fatherland. One of the most precious things 
they had brought from the old country was the skill 
to cook a savory meal — a meal that one could enjoy to 
the full without feeling the pangs of dyspeptic remorse 
for hours afterwards. 

The Aurora hotel soon became far-famed ; and when 
the first railway was built from San Francisco to Port- 
land, the astute makers of the time-table somehow 
managed it so that most of the trains stopped at Aurora, 
though it is but twenty-eight miles from the terminal, 
Portland. 

Nor was that all. The popularity of the Aurora 
cookery suggested the idea that it might be profitable 
to erect a restaurant tent in Salem during the annual 



io FOOD AND FLAVOR 

State Fair. The result was astonishing. All the 
other eating-places were soon completely deserted; the 
Aurora tent had to be enlarged, and there was such a 
mad rush for seats at the tables that in a few days 
nearly every man and woman and boy and girl in the 
village had been drafted to serve as cooks or waiters. 

It was plain German bourgeois cooking; but the 
sausages were made of honest pork and the hams had 
the appetizing flavor which the old-fashioned smoke- 
house gives them; the bread was soft yet baked thor- 
oughly, the butter was fresh and fragrant and the pan- 
cakes melted in the mouth. As for the supreme effort 
of Aurora cookery — noodle soup made with the boiled 
chicken {not cold-storage chicken) served in the plate 
■ — the mere memory of it makes my mouth water, four 
decades after eating it. 

In justice to Portland, which in those days was in 
a benighted condition fully warranting the action of 
the railway men in making Aurora their culinary ter- 
minus, let me hasten to add that at present, with its 
Chinook salmon and Columbia River smelt, its hard- 
shell crabs and razor clams, its delicious Willamette 
crawfish — rivaling the best French ecrevisses — its 
fragrant mammoth strawberries, its juicy cherries, and 
its world-famed Hood River apples, it is hardly second 
to San Francisco as a gastronomic center. In Oregon, 
as in Washington and California, the epicure fares 
particularly well because the luxuries of life are as 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA n 

cheap as the staples and quite as abundant, if not more 
so. 

ARE WOMEN TO BLAME 1 ? 

Inasmuch as an American is quite as capable of en- 
joying a good meal as any one else, why is it that we 
are so conspicuously ungastronomic as a nation"? 

It is obvious that the cooks are largely to blame. It 
is so difficult to procure a good cook that most of us 
give up the search in despair and resignedly eat what 
is placed before us. 

In Europe it is still comparatively easy to find a 
young woman or a man who, by domestic training, 
has learned to prepare a savory meal and is willing to 
take the trouble necessary to get satisfactory results. 
In the United States few of the helpers available have 
any domestic traditions to fall back on. As a rule, 
they frankly admit, on applying for a place, that they 
know only "plain cooking." As a matter of fact, few 
of them can even boil an egg or a potato without spoil- 
ing it. They are not interested in their work, as they 
would be if they -were experts, and their main object 
is to get as much money as they can for as little work 
as possible. To be sure, a cook's hours are long, but 
many of them are spent, in dawdling. 

It is unfortunate that most of our hired cooks are 
Irish. There are and have been excellent cooks of this 
nation, but as a rule the Irish are not so interested in 



12 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

this art as the French, Germans, Italians and Swedes, 
and the results are deplorable, especially when, as is 
usually the case, the mistress is herself so ignorant that 
she cannot tell the cook why the food is wrong and 
how it could be improved. 

The worst of it is that if the mistress of the house 
does know enough herself to teach the new cook some 
tricks, the latter is likely to leave because, on account 
of this newly acquired knowledge, she can get higher 
wages elsewhere ! Which reminds me of what hap- 
pened to my wife's grandmother. She once had a cook 
who was absolutely green, but who wanted the highest 
wages. When asked how she could demand so much 
when she admitted her ignorance, she retorted: 

"Ah, Mrs. Black, thelarnin' is the sevarest part of it." 

It will not do, however, to put all the blame on the 
domestic helpers. Only one family in twelve, even 
in our wealthy country, can afford to hire a cook. In 
the other eleven families the women of the house are 
personally responsible for the meals. Why are these 
generally so unsatisfactory"? 

Visitors from abroad who have asked themselves 
this question, usually answer it by saying that Ameri- 
cans have idolized and spoiled their women and are 
now paying the penalty. 

"The European," says one of them, "takes it as a 
matter of course that the woman he marries will be 
his home-maker and housekeeper, able and willing, if 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 13 

necessary, to do the careful cooking on which his health 
and his enjoyment of life depend so largely. In 
America the main object of the women seems to be to 
throw off all the responsibilities of housekeeping so 
that they may either gad about socially or engage in 
outside employment. The necessary meals are hastily 
cooked, marketing is done by telephone, the grocer and 
butcher are foolishly trusted as to the quality of the 
raw material, and the results are such as we see — 
monotonous, unwholesome, insipid meals, followed by 
indigestion." 

There is no doubt some truth in this foreigner's ob- 
servations, though he takes no account of the many 
thousands of American wives who work as hard to 
make their homes abodes of comfort, health and hap- 
piness as their husbands do to supply the necessary cash. 

On the American men falls a large share of the blame 
for existing conditions. Completely absorbed in their 
private and particular business they labored too long 
under the delusion that their whole duty consisted 
in supplying the cash needed for housekeeping. 
Their indifference to the sources and the quality of the 
raw material of the food they ate, brought into exist- 
ence a horde of adulterators and poisoners on a scale 
never before witnessed anywhere — and that is another 
important reason why we are not a gastronomic nation. 
With such sophisticated material the best cooks in the 
world could not prepare appetizing, wholesome meals; 



14 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

and when meals are not appetizing, men lose interest 
in them, bolting their food, and passing on to things 
that seem more important and agreeable. 

Adulterators and spoilers of food have existed since 
the days of the ancient Greeks and Romans and prob- 
ably they flourished long before them; but never be- 
fore had the far-famed "Yankee ingenuity" been 
brought to bear on the ignoble task of deceiving peo- 
ple as to what they were eating and drinking. 

Of this ingenuity a striking illustration was given at 
Washington when the pure food agitators, headed by 
Dr. Wiley of the Department of Agriculture, gave an 
exhibit before Congress. On a table had been placed 
— along with other similarly fraudulent articles — a 
bottle of "honey." On the surface of it floated a bee. 
Now, the man who put that bee in the bottle had said 
to himself: "Nine persons out of ten will, on seeing 
it, conclude instantly that it got in accidentally and 
that it proves the honey to be genuine." But that 
bottle never contained any honey; it was filled with 
a sticky, sweet substance resembling honey in appear- 
ance, but instead of being made up of the products of 
the bee's beneficent floral industry, it contained ingredi- 
ents some of which were injurious to health. 

THE DANGER IN OUR FOOD. 

That bottle was a sample of thousands of adulter- 
ated or entirely spurious "foods" for which American 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 1$ 

men and women had been for a long time spending 
good money in the belief that they were getting what 
they paid for. 

A quarter of a century ago the food poisoners and 
adulterators spread a net of fraud across the United 
States, the like of which the world had never seen; and 
for a long time the American public, with the meek- 
ness (up to a certain point!) for which it has become 
notorious, submitted to this abuse, eating the drugged 
food and suffering the daily pangs of indigestion, won- 
dering vaguely what was the matter — why Europeans 
found us a nation of dyspeptics — and paying fortunes 
to doctors, and to vendors of patent medicines, without 
being able to avert the final general breakdown. 

Then something occurred which made the worm 
turn on its tormentors — the "embalmed beef" incident. 

Major-General Miles, backed up by other officers, 
declared positively that most of the canned beef sup- 
plied to our soldiers during the war with Spain was 
unfit for human food, and that he was convinced that 
the refrigerated beef supplied was highly deleterious 
because of the introduction of chemicals for preserva- 
tive purposes. The court which investigated these 
charges, while admitting some of the alleged evils, in- 
dulged, many people thought, in whitewashing; so 
the public at last made up its mind that "something 
was rotten in the state of Denmark." 

Particularly was it impressed by the statement that 



16 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

the food supplied to the army was "not different from 
that generally sold to the public." That admission 
made people ask themselves: "What, then, are we 
eating? 5 

The result was a general awakening and investiga- 
tion, a country-wide search which revealed the shock- 
ing fact that the community was harboring thousands 
of seemingly respectable citizens who were piling up 
fortunes by plying the deadly trade of modern Bor- 
gias, slaughtering infants and invalids and making even 
the robust feel uncomfortable most of the time. 

The chemicals used were formalin, boric and salicylic 
acid, fluo-sylicate of ammonium, aniline dyes, and a 
number of secret compounds that were sold to packers 
and dealers, enabling them to doctor spoiled meats and 
other foods in such a way as to deceive the purchaser 
and consumer into thinking them fresh and whole- 
some. 

To realize the full extent of this nefarious traffic one 
has to go back to the newspaper reports of the investi- 
gations and food tests, especially in the year 1899, 
after the "embalmed beef" inquiry. I have before me 
clippings that would fill fifty pages with gruesome 
details; but a mere peep into this culinary chamber of 
horrors must suffice. 

" The use of antiseptics as preservatives is becoming 
alarmingly great," declared Prof. A. S. Mitchell, 
analytical chemist of the Wisconsin Dairy and Food 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 17 

Commission, before the Senatorial Committee on Pure 
Food Investigation. Among the preservatives he 
named was a liquid called "freezene," which he said, 
was almost pure formic-aldehyde, the substance that 
several chemists at the military inquiry had claimed to 
have found in the beef furnished the army. It acts 
disastrously upon the tissues of the stomach, but was 
often put into the milk and butter supplied to families. 
Butchers employed freely, especially in "Hamburger 
steaks," sulphite of soda, which not merely arrests di- 
gestion, but is, as another Government expert remarked, 
practically the same he had used as a medical student 
to preserve corpses, and later to disinfect houses where 
smallpox patients had lived. 

The New York "Herald" of June 4, 1899, contained 
a page and a half of exposures, with these headlines : 

POISON AND ADULTERATION FOUND IN ALL FOOD 
PURCHASED BY THE "HERALD." FORTY SAMPLES ANA- 
LYZED AND NOT ONE OF THEM WHAT IT PURPORTED 
TO BE. TEA THAT CONTAINED ALMOST EVERYTHING 
BUT TEA LEAVES. SOME FACTS THAT EVERY HOUSE- 
KEEPER SHOULD KNOW. THE CITY AUTHORITIES DO 
LITTLE. 

One of the samples of what was sold as "tea" was 
"composed of refuse of many kinds — hair, mouldy 
leaves from everything that grows but the tea plant." 
Another sample contained "dust, seed-pods, foreign 
woody stems, and unidentified refuse." 



18 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

To cite one more of the two-score analyses made by 
the "Herald's" expert (James C. Duff, consulting chem- 
ist to the New York Produce Exchange) : "The sample 
of American macaroni contains artificial yellow color- 
ing matter, egg-yolk color, composed of flour and the 
coloring matter. This coloring matter has as its base 
chrome colors — substances very poisonous. The genu- 
ine Italian macaroni contains nothing injurious to 
health." 

"Reports from analysts in other cities show that 92 
per cent, of the allspice examined is adulterated, 50 
per cent, of cinnamon, 60 per cent, of ginger, 100 per 
cent, of mustard, and 70 per cent of pepper. 
It is a matter of record that the demand for the mate- 
rials for adulteration has called into existence a branch 
of manufacturing industry having for its sole object 
the production of articles known as 'spice mixtures' 
or 'pepper dust.' They are sold by the barrel as 'P. D. 
ginger,' 'P. D. pepper,' or 'P. D. cloves.' These man- 
ufacturers openly advertise themselves as 'assorters 
and renovators of merchandise. . . .' " 

The New York "Tribune" printed a report of an ad- 
dress made by a representative of the Benchmen's As- 
sociation of Retail Butchers who said, regarding the 
upper West Side: "Decayed meats are chemically 
treated to counteract odor and outer discoloration and 
are hawked on the street corners on Saturday nights. 
The shoppers of that locality are after something cheap, 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 19 

and here they get it. Resulting illness is ascribed to a 
mysterious Providence or anything rather than the 
'nice tender broilers, two for a quarter,' that they had 
for Sunday's dinner. The police say the matter is 
one for the Health Department, and the Health De- 
partment refers your complaints to its inspectors. 
These are paid from $1,200 to $1,400 a year, and to 
my positive knowledge not one of them has entered 
our shops for the last seven years. For all the Health 
Department knows, we might have been selling spoiled 
meat all that time." 

A Philadelphian investigator of adulterated food, 
H. Wharton Amberling, wrote: "There has been 
adulteration for ages. It is born of the same parentage 
as robbery, perjury, arson and murder. It has grown 
in enormity because the law has not dealt with it as 
it has with other crimes. The rapid progress of chem- 
istry has attained most grateful accomplishments, but 
the leprous hand of adulteration is using it to fill our 
blood with the poison of disease and death." 

"It is estimated," said the New York "Evening 
Post," "that the people of the United States spend no 
less than five billion dollars a year for food and that 
nine-tenths of this money is paid for articles of food 
which are more or less adulterated. All food adultera- 
tions are not injurious, though a great majority of them, 
probably nine-tenths, are so, in greater or less de- 
gree. . . , The art of adulterating food has been 







CU'r>r^*^ 













t^"** 



A matter for the Health Department 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 21 

carried to a very fine point by American ingenuity and 
has proved immensely profitable to those who practise 
it, while it has undoubtedly worked great damage to 
the general health. . . . It is a wise man who 
knows what he is eating nowadays." 

A report of the Connecticut Agricultural Experi- 
ment Station called attention to the fact that eighty- 
nine samples of tea were all found pure as a result 
of the federal law of 1897, which established a board 
of seven experts to enforce the statute and forbade im- 
portation of the adulterated article. 

The American products were on the other hand in a 
woeful condition. Sixty-three samples of fruit jelly 
examined showed adulteration in two-thirds of the 
cases by starch, glucose, aniline dyes, and salicylic acid. 
Pure jellies cost 25 cents a pound while these artificial 
jellies cost but five cents. Out of 40 samples of 
marmalades and jams only three were pure. Exam- 
ination of nineteen samples of sausages and oysters 
showed "embalming" by boric acid. 

WHY THE CANDY WAS NOT EATEN. 

Miss Alice Lakey, chairman of the food investigat- 
ing committee of the Food Consumers' League, made a 
collection, as the New York "Sun" reported, of squares 
of flannel, a dozen of them, in brilliant hues of green, 
red, pink, and other colors — all colored with the coal 
tar dyes that came out of eatables and drinkables, she 



22 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

explained, adding: "It's a wonder that our insides are 
not dyed all the colors of the rainbow. 

"One of the meanest forms of adulteration I know," 
she further remarked, "is the blackberry brandy, be- 
cause that is bought for invalids, aged and delicate 
persons, who hope to get a little strength and appetite 
from it. Out of 600 samples examined, 460 contained 
no trace of blackberries. They were made of crude 
spirits colored with coal tar dyes. 

"Did you ever hear the story," she continued, "of 
the kind-hearted New York woman who invited a com- 
pany of Italian girls who worked in a candy factory 
to a Christmas party"? She had an entertainment and 
Christmas tree for them, and among other things was 
a box of fine chocolate creams for each one. When 
they went away every child left her box of candy on 
the chair behind her. 

" 'Why, aren't you going to take your chocolates'?' 
said the surprised hostess. 

" 'Oh, no,' they said in chorus; 'we make those!' " 

That tells the whole story. The slaughter of the 
innocents and the ruining of health of children by 
means of adulterated and poisoned candies was for 
decades a national crime that would have justified 
thousands of lynchings, if anything ever does justify 
such summary meting out of punishment. 

Dr. Shepard, State chemist of South Dakota, framed 
a series of menus, on the plan of those published by the 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 23 

women's magazines, to assist housewives in catering for 
families. Here are three, which show how any family 
in the United States might have reasonably taken forty 
doses of chemical -preservatives and coal tar dyes in 
one day: 

BREAKFAST 

Sausages containing coal tar dye and borax 
Baker's Bread containing alum 

Butter containing coal tar dye 
Canned Cherries containing coal tar dye and salicylic acid 
Pancakes containing alum 

Syrup containing sodium sulphate 

DINNER 

Tomato Soup with coal tar dye and benzoic acid 
Cabbage and Corned Beef with saltpeter 

Corn Scallops with sulphurous acid and formaldehyde 
Canned Peas with salicylic acid 
Catsup with coal tar dye and benzoic acid 

Vinegar with coal tar dye 
Mince Pie with boracic acid 
Pickles with copperas, sodium sulphate and salicylic acid 
Lemon Ice Cream with methyl alcohol 

SUPPER 

Bread and Butter with alum and coal tar dye 

Canned Beef with borax 

Canned Peaches with sodium sulphite, coal tar dye and salicylic 

acid 

Pickles with copperas, sodium sulphate and formaldehyde 

Catsup with coal tar dye and benzoic acid 

Lemon Cake with alum 
Baked Pork and Beans with formaldehyde 
Vinegar, coal tar dye 
Currant Jelly, coal tar dye and salicylic acid 

Cheese, coal tar dye 



24 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Physicians sometimes prescribe such chemicals, when 
they are indicated, in very small doses. The Food 
Commissioner of North Dakota, Dr. Ladd, reported in 
a bulletin that he found from five to fifteen grains of 
boric acid to every pound of ham, dried beef, etc., 
examined; while in hamburger steaks, sausages, etc., 
the amount ranged from twenty to fifty grains a pound. 
The maximum dose of boric acid prescribed by a physi- 
cian is said not to exceed ten grains daily. 

dr. wiley's poison squad. 

Napoleon Bonaparte said that "soldiers march and 
fight on their stomachs." If our soldiers, fed on "em- 
balmed" beef and other chemically treated food, had 
had much marching and fighting to do, Spain might 
have won. As it was, the American soldiers who were 
killed or invalided during that war, were martyrs to 
a nobler cause than that of humiliating poor Spain. 
It was their sufferings that, as already intimated, led 
to the national revolt against the wholesale poisoners 
and adulterators for commercial profit. 

As a matter of course, the parties accused showed 
fight. One of the earliest battles was fought over 
borax, and it was in this battle that Dr. Wiley first 
came before the general public prominently. During 
the months from December, 1902, to July 1, 1903, he 
made a series of experiments on twelve young men in 
Washington as to the influence on the health of food 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 25 

containing boric acid or borax. Some of the con- 
clusions reached were thus summed up briefly: 

When boric acid or its equivalent in borax is taken in food 
in quantities not exceeding a half gram daily, no immediate 
effects are observed; after a time there occur occasional loss of 
appetite, a feeling of fullness in the head, gastric discomfort, and 
general ill-feeling. Only the more sensitive persons develop 
symptoms from the amounts named. When the drug is given 
in larger and increasing doses, these symptoms in accentuated 
form develop more rapidly ; most common is persistent headache 
with slight clouding of the mental processes. The quantity 
of boric acid required to produce definite symptoms varies greatly 
with different individuals. In some, one to two grams daily 
produce decided distress; in others, three grams cause little if 
any discomfort. Conclusions regarding the use of less than 
half a gram daily were not reached, but from the effect of the 
larger quantities taken for a short time, it is reasonable to infer 
that smaller doses during an extended period would also prove 
injurious. The results in general indicate that it is not advis- 
able to use borax in articles of food intended for common and 
continuous use. When placed in foods used only occasionally 
and in small amounts, the quantity of the contained preservative 
should be stated plainly, that the consumer may know what he 
is eating. 

One of the most interesting facts, and one known to 
few, in connection with these experiments, is that Dr. 
Wiley actually began them with a bias in favor of 
borax. He did not believe, he said, that borax was 
a harmful preservative, but he was going to find out. 
This statement aroused my suspicion. Knowing how 
much "graft" and "politics" there are apt to be in such 



26 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

investigations, I made up my mind that Dr. Wiley was 
a fraud and that he would undoubtedly give a verdict 
in favor of borax. While in this frame of mind I 
wrote the following editorial for the New York "Even- 
ing Post" (April 8, 1903) : 

Dr. Wiley, of the Department of Agriculture, seems to re- 
quire a long time to decide whether his "brigade of poison eat- 
ers," as the Washington wits have dubbed his free boarders, are 
really eating poison or only harmless food preservatives unjustly 
suspected of being injurious. It needed no elaborate experi- 
ments to prove that drugged food may be eaten without serious 
harm. Many of us are probably eating more or less of drugged 
food all the time without actually having to be taken to the 
hospital; but many others do suffer in health, vitality and ca- 
pacity for work from eating it. In regard to salicylic acid and 
formaldehyde, Dr. Wiley himself wrote in "Leslie's Weekly" 
two years ago that there is no doubt of the pernicious influence of 
these preservatives in some cases. He also said, truly, that "the 
public supervision should look after the weak and diseased di- 
gestive systems rather than the strong and vigorous." Why, 
nevertheless, he chose to make his Washington experiments on 
the strongest young men he could find is a mystery he has not 
explained. In the "Lancet" of Nov. 30, 1901, an account was 
given of a series of experiments with boric acid made by Dr. 
Rinehart, in which the symptoms of poisoning disappeared as 
soon as the use of the drug was given up. Further evidence is 
furnished in the "Munchener Medicinische Wochenschrift"' of 
Jan. 26. Dr. G. Merkel, of Nuremberg, experimented with 
boric acid on eleven patients, seven of whom promptly showed 
disturbance of the gastro-intestinal tract. The inevitable in- 
ference from such facts is either that the use of boric acid as a 
preservative of food should be prohibited by law, or, at least, 
that the law should require mention of its use on the label of 




HARVEY W. WILEY 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 27 

canned goods, and in butter, cream, milk and meat, in order 
that those whose digestion is not as robust as that of Dr. Wiley's 
select boarders may take warning. 

The fact that these remarks were widely copied 
showed that many other editors shared my suspicions. 
Then came Dr. Wiley's verdict, which proclaimed him 
the honest, bold, incorruptible champion of truth who 
was soon to become respected, admired, and idolized 
by the whole American public, with the exception of 
those who had commercial reasons for disliking him. 

Perhaps I may be pardoned for inserting here a ref- 
erence to an amusing incident that occurred during this 
controversy. Another article of mine, in which I had 
spoken disrespectfully of borax, resulted the following 
day in a visit to the office of the "Evening Post" by a 
man who wanted to see the "borax editor." He was 
shown to my room, and promptly proceeded to in- 
form me that I was entirely mistaken in thinking borax 
harmful. I replied that I considered borax one of 
the most useful things in the world, the greatest of 
"dirt-chasers," indispensable on the wash stand and in 
the wash house ; but as for internal use, I had had days 
of discomfort which made me look on it with feel- 
ings of genuine alarm. 

"I '11 tell you what I '11 do!" retorted the man, who 
represented one of the large borax companies. "I am 
willing to take a glass of water, put in a tablespoonful 
of borax and drink it right before you." "That's 



28 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

nothing," I replied; "I wouldn't hesitate to do the 
same thing. Borax is not a deadly drug like arsenic or 
strychnine, it is a chemical which, taken into the 
stomach in small doses day after day, week after week, 
and month after month, acts as a cumulative poison, 
gradually weakening even the strongest stomach; and, 
inasmuch as the stomach is the source of most diseases, 
thus paving the way for all sorts of troubles." 1 

CONDIMENTS VERSUS CHEMICAL PRESERVATIVES. 

Until about three decades ago it was customary the 
world over to cure meats with condimental substances, 
particularly salt, vinegar, sugar, and wood smoke. 
These not only preserved the meats but developed their 
inherent flavors, while adding others that were equally 
relished by consumers, thus enabling them to enjoy their 
meals without disagreeable and depressing after-effects. 

All at once, like a devastating avalanche, the whole- 
sale use of non-condimental chemicals tumbled upon 
the country. Why the avalanche grew so fast may 
be gathered from a few lines on page 37 of the second 
edition of Dr. Wiley's admirable book, just referred 
to in a footnote; lines which deserve to be printed 

1 The argument that small doses of chemicals can do no harm 
has been demolished with merciless logic by Dr. Wiley in his "Foods 
and Their Adulteration" (second edition, pp. 38-40). This admirable 
book should be in every home, for daily reference. It gives, in un- 
technical language a vast amount of information regarding all our 
important foods, with hints as to the detection of dangerous or objec- 
tionable impurities. 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 29 

in italics, and which every reader should engrave on 
his memory: 




The old-fashioned way 

The chemicals employed are those known as germi- 
cides. In the quantities used they neither impart a 
taste nor odor to a preserved meat, but by their germi- 



30 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

cidal properties prevent the development of organic 
ferments and thus make the preservation of meat far 
more certain and very much less expensive. By the use 
of some chemicals the salting, sugaring, and smoking 
of preserved meat may be done with very much less 
care, in a very much shorter time, and at a very greatly 
reduced expense. For this reason the 'practice has 
gained a great vogue, not as a means of benefiting the 
consumers, but rather as a means of enriching the 
packer and dealer. Chemical preservatives are also 
highly objectionable because they keep meats appar- 
ently fresh, while in reality changes of the most dan- 
gerous character may be going on. They thus prevent 
the display of the red light danger signal. 

Concerning this last point the London "Lancet" has 
used another and equally forcible simile: 

It is by no means certain that preservatives in small quan- 
tities can prevent decomposition. They do stop putrefaction 
and thus destroy the signs by which decomposition is made evi- 
dent to the senses. Their effect resembles that of tying down 
the safety valve of a steam engine. The advocates of food pre- 
servatives seem always to ignore, or to be ignorant of, the op- 
portunity afforded and advantage taken of their use for dirty 
and fraudulent practices. 

These remarks are of the utmost importance, for they 
call attention to the fact that even if the chemical, non- 
condimental preservatives were not slow poisons, it 
would be necessary to forbid their use because they en- 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 31 

able unscrupulous persons to make foods of the most 
nauseating substances. Let me quote another expert, 
who states the case vividly: 

Milk, eggs and fish are three foods especially which become 
extremely dangerous when decomposition sets in. The chemi- 
cals placed in them by dealers destroy the offensive taste and 
odor, thus robbing nature of her means of protecting us from 
danger. Many little children killed from eating ice cream and 
bakery products never would have tasted them if the smell and 
taste of the rotten eggs and putrid milk had not been hidden by 
the chemicals. The vilest, most malodorous factory refuse may 
be made pleasant to the sight, taste and smell through the mag- 
ical effects of benzoate of soda, saccharin and coal tar dye. The 
coal tar dye gives a clear, translucent appearance to the product ; 
the saccharin sweetens it and benzoate of soda embalms it so 
it will keep for a decade without spoiling. These disguised 
putrid foods are additionally dangerous in hot weather. 

SCOTCHED, NOT KILLED. 

The great outcry raised by all these startling reve- 
lations concerning the unscrupulous methods of the food 
poisoners resulted in the passage, in 1906, of the epoch- 
making Food and Drugs Act, which gave the United 
States a most elaborate and minute set of laws for the 
protection of the public and the punishment of of- 
fenders. The result was an immediate and decided 
improvement in many departments, especially that of 
canned fruits, concerning which Dr. Wiley wrote in 
1911 that "the time is now rapidly approaching when 
all such goods will be free of any imitation or adultera- 



32 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

tion, and this will add greatly to their value in the 
markets of the country." 

In many other directions, however, the drugging of 
foods with slow poisons continued. The snake was 
only scotched, not killed. 

"If you took all the food in New York City to-day 
and put it in a big tent down in Texas, I would throw 
away 40 per cent, of it," said Gaston G. Netter of the 
Geneva White Cross Society (which is the Interna- 
tional Pure Food Association), in October, 1911. 
"The people here in New York City are being hourly 
poisoned by food labeled as absolutely pure. I buy 
it and test it every day and I know. I saw some 
sardines marked 'pure sardines in olive oil.' They 
were a disintegrated mass of decayed, poisonous fish, 
and the oil had never known an olive. A large per- 
centage of the vinegar used for preserving such things 
as prunes is an acidulated preparation fatal to the lin- 
ing of the stomach." 

The vinegar sold by many grocers in defiance of 
the law is made with acetic acid, which is prepared 
by the destructive distillation of wood. So little of 
this is needed that the adulterator can make a gallon 
of "vinegar" at a cost of two cents, or a barrel for a 
dollar. This, sold in bottles, yields a profit of over 
$20 a barrel. Sometimes a trace of malic acid or con- 
centrated apple juice is added to give a reaction which 
may fool the analyst. It is this poisonous stuff that 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 33 

is used in American homes to dress salads and is put 
into bottles of chow chow, chili sauce, and the pickles 
so dear to school children. 

Concerning the cheap candies that are still dearer to 
the children, Harry P. Cassidy in an address before the 
wholesale candy dealers (reported in the New York 
"Sun" of March 10, 1912), said: 

"We have found burnt umber in candy which is 
sold and guaranteed as pure to the small shopkeepers. 
We have found stearin in it which melts only at a 
temperature of 135 degrees Fahrenheit, whereas the 
temperature of the human body is only 98.6 degrees. 
We have found furniture glue and dangerous ether 
flavoring matter and paraffin and shellac and many 
other injurious substances which the members of this 
association handle." 

Another speaker at this meeting, Prof. Charles 
La Wall, spoke of lampblack as being used to color 
so-called licorice and of marshmallows that had been 
blued with ultramarine, just as bluing is used in wash- 
ing clothes. Poisonous sulphuric acid may be con- 
tained in molasses, glucose, shredded cocoanut and 
many other things. "As candies are often composed 
chiefly of these four products, a child in buying a 
penny's worth of candy may get four doses in one of 
the deadly sulphites such as the cleaner uses in whiten- 
ing our straw hats." 

America is specially noted, as Rutledge Rutherford 



34 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

remarks in the "National Food Magazine" (1912), for 
two things — its chemicalized food and its infantile 
mortality. According to the estimate of the New 
York food expert, Alfred W. McCann, three million 
persons in the United States were made ill by adulter- 
ated foods in 1911. 

That was five years after the passing of the Pure 
Food Law. The trouble with that law is that it is 
not interstate. A dishonest man in one State can do 
all the food "doping" he pleases as long as he does not 
sell any of it in another State. Most of the States 
now have laws of their own on this matter, but often 
they leave much to be desired. 

What is worse, these laws are not enforced; or, if 
the criminals are brought to bay, the punishment is so 
mild that it does not prevent a repetition of the of- 
fense. "If a grocer knew that a can of tomatoes or 
a can of sardines sold by him could be taken to the 
corner and analyzed and if found bad that he would 
be prosecuted, the pure food law would be a real 
thing," says Gaston G. Netter, who asserts that if 
New York City would bring about such a reform — 
at a cost of perhaps $150,000 a year — it would "do 
away with half the medical clinics." 

Fines alone will not suffice to bring about a re- 
form. We can hardly follow the example of the 
Turks who, if a baker gives false weight or adulterates 
his bread, cut off one of his ears and nail it to the 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 35 

door post. But we could follow the example of the 
wise municipal officials who compelled the Munich 
brewers to make honest beer, out of malt and hops 
alone. At first, fines were imposed for using other 
materials, and these fines were made larger and larger; 
but the brewers found they could pay the highest fines 
and still save money by using chemicals. Then the 
lawmakers changed their tactics; the "man highest up" 
was threatened with imprisonment. The millionaire 
brewers had a pardonable aversion to jail — and from 
that time on Munich beer became the best in the 
world. Ere long, whole trainloads of it began to be 
sent daily in all directions — to North Germany and 
Russia, to Paris and London, to Vienna, and to the 
cities of Italy. The brewers had been compelled, at 
pistol's point, to acknowledge the truth that, after all, 
in the long run, honesty is the best policy. 

Some of the largest American manufacturing firms 
have followed this policy voluntarily, though the 
prices they have to pay for good fresh material places 
them at a great disadvantage to the adulterators who 
buy any rotten old thing and "renovate" it, or else 
make the article entirely of chemicals. 

"In four years," said Alfred W. McCann (in March, 
1912), "the Government has caught nearly fifty 
wholesale adulterators in the act of shipping bogus 
vinegar from one State into another. In every in- 
stance the Government won its case, but in every 



36 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

instance petty fines were inflicted by the courts and the 
same offenders were caught again and again. 
Small fines have no deterrent effect on food frauds. 
The game is too profitable to suffer extinction under 
any other influence than jail sentences, and jail sen- 
tences have not been imposed in a single case brought 
by the Government against food or drug adulterators." 

Food and drug adulterators are wealthy men, but 
they are not stingy. They gladly share their sordid 
earnings with the politicians who protect them. 
"Why do the States delay in enacting uniform laws 
patterned after the excellent national laws'?" asks Mr. 
McCann; and his answer tells the plain truth: "Each 
State has some powerful pet food industry to protect 
and some weak legislators willing to do the bidding of 
the fakers." 

Every reader of this book perused in the newspapers 
the story of the disgraceful conspiracy in Washington 
against Dr. Wiley, and remembers vividly the nation- 
wide outburst of indignation which came to the rescue 
of the courageous chemist and made him a national 
hero. He remained for the time being, but his en- 
emies were not punished, although the President 
promised to reform the Department of Agriculture. 
His failure to do so is one of the principal reasons why 
he was not re-elected. Dr. Wiley, seeing that his 
efforts to secure the enforcement of the Pure Food 
Laws were useless, at last resigned, and in "Good 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 37 

Housekeeping" for October, 1912, he gave some of the 
reasons for this step. 

The Remsen Board was created for the express pur- 
pose of reviewing his decisions against food manipula- 
tors. It never missed a chance to reverse them, to 
the huge delight of certain manufacturers and 
dealers. Although the Moss investigating committee 
unanimously pronounced the Remsen Board as wholly 
without authority, its decisions were followed by 
officials of the Government; important matters re- 
ferred to it were held in abeyance. For instance, an 
exhaustive report of the experiments made in the 
Bureau of Chemistry, which showed, in Dr. Wiley's 
opinion, "the injuriousness of copper sulphate when 
added to foods, has been hibernating in the Depart- 
ment of Archives for the past four years and its use 
permitted in the interim." 

The opposition to Dr. Wiley's decisions brought 
about "practical paralysis in all matters pertaining to 
the addition of benzoic acid, sulphurous acid, sacchar- 
ine, sulphate of copper, and alum to food products. As 
it was the addition of these bodies which constituted 95 
per cent, of the total adulteration practised, it is easy 
to see that, so far as adulteration was concerned, the 
food law became practically a dead letter." 

The physicians of the country, who, better than 
others, know the danger of using drugs indiscrimi- 
nately, sided with Dr. Wiley. At a meeting in Pitts- 



38 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

burg of the American Medical Association, represent- 
ing 25,000 physicians and surgeons, that body "in spite 
of the decision of the referee board, pledged itself un- 
compromisingly against benzoate of soda and all other 
chemical forms of food preservatives." 

How bitterly the war against Dr. Wiley and pure- 
food legislation was carried on, not only at Washing- 
ton but in various States with aid from Washington, 
is illustrated by the following extract from a letter 
written to Dr. Wiley by the Health Commissioner of 
Indiana : 

It is not necessary to recall to you the tremendous difficulties 
under which the State labored when it endeavored to prevent 
the overthrow of its pure food law because of the activities of 
the Department of Agriculture in behalf of the firms who were 
seeking that end ; how we were refused the assistance of yourself 
and your chemists; how we had to compel the getting of testi- 
mony by an order of the court of the District of Columbia, and 
how, on the other hand, employees of the Government known to 
be in sympathy with the firms bringing suit against us were 
sent to Indianapolis to testify against the State at the expense 
of the Department of Agriculture. 

Another illustration of the war on the Pure Food 
Laws was given in the New York "Globe" of Oct. 24, 
1912, by Alfred W. McCann. After pointing out that 
"there has been no let-up in attempts to deceive," and 
that "food ideals depend absolutely on the integrity 
and zeal of a few so-called fanatics like Dr. Wiley, 
who are thus far responsible for all the advance we 
have made," he goes on to say: 



UNGASTRONOMIC AMERICA 39 

In the State of Pennsylvania one of the most active pure 
food workers, who has contributed energy and zeal to the cause 
of the people, H. P. Cassidy, special agent of the Pennsylvania 
Dairy and Food Department, after ten years of remarkable serv- 
ice has been removed from office by the same kind of pressure 
which finally disposed of Dr. Wiley. 

Charges were made a few days ago against Mr. Cassidy, 
whose activity had resulted in more than 8,000 arrests for food 
adulterations in the City of Philadelphia alone. He demanded 
a hearing before the governor. The hearing was granted. The 
charges fell to pieces and Mr. Cassidy, like Dr. Wiley, was 
vindicated. Two days later the Pennsylvania authorities noti- 
fied him that, although he was found guiltless, harmonious re- 
lations between him and his chiefs had been strained, and there- 
fore for the good of the service it was decided that he should be 
dismissed. 

If the pure food movement were making the kind of progress 
which it is thought to be making, such backward steps would 
not be tolerated by the people, for the dismissal from office of 
such a man as Cassidy will serve as a warning to other pure food 
officials not to be too zealous in the discharge of their duties. 

The direct result of Cassidy's dismissal will show itself in the 
State of Pennsylvania by a long line of cowardice in applying the 
law. I make this prophecy and guarantee its fulfilment. 

It is needless to dwell further on these disgraceful 
efforts to thwart the Pure Food Laws. Dr. Wiley did 
not exaggerate when in summing up the situation he 
printed the following, in italics: 

No further blot upon the administration of law can, 
in my opinion, be found in the history of the United 
States than this effort of the United States Govern- 
ment to paralyze, belittle, and destroy a law passed in 
the interests of the people of the country. 




^J^ 



II 



VITAL IMPORTANCE OF FLAVOR 




TARTLING as are the facts in the fore- 
going chapter, they do not tell the 
whole story. We have seen that the 
non-condimental chemical preservatives 
used by the food poisoners are highly 
objectionable on two grounds: (l) be- 
cause they are usually injurious and often deadly; and 
(2) because they enable unscrupulous persons to use the 
filthiest, rottenest material and so doctor it as to de- 
ceive the consumer into believing it to be wholesome 
food, whereas it may, and often does, result in ptomaine 
poisoning. 

But there is a third indictment against the food 

sophisticators. The chemicals they use, not only make 

40 



IMPORTANCE OF FLAVOR 41 

the food they manipulate dangerous to eat, but they 
also diminish and often completely destroy its Flavor. 
This destruction of the food Flavors may seem to 
those who have given no special attention to this mat- 
ter a thing to be regretted, indeed, but not an actual 
crime. That it is a real crime, because it helps to 
undermine the consumers' health, I shall demonstrate 
in this chapter. It is necessary to know the facts 
now to be set forth in order to realize the full signifi- 
cance of the deplorable state of affairs to be revealed 
in the next chapter, entitled Our Denatured Foods. 
That chapter will continue the subject of Ungastro- 
nomic America, wherefore Chapter II may be re- 
garded as an Intermezzo — but a most important one, 
for it contains truths that are of vital importance to 
everybody. Indeed, it is chiefly for the sake of im- 
pressing these truths on as many intelligent persons 
as possible that I am writing this book. 

SENSUAL INDULGENCE AS A DUTY. 

Too long we have been allowing covetous manu- 
facturers and dealers and incompetent or indolent 
cooks to spoil our naturally good food. We have done 
this because we have not as a nation understood that 
there is nothing in the world on which our health and 
hourly comfort, our happiness and our capacity for 
hard work, depend so much as on the Flavor of 
food — those savory qualities which make it appetizing 



42 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

and enjoyable and therefore digestible and helpful. 

It is not too much to say that the most important 
problem now before the American public is to learn 
to enjoy the pleasures of the table and to insist on hav- 
ing savory food at every meal. 

There was a time when it would have been con- 
sidered rank heresy to express such an opinion, and 
even to-day there are millions of honest folk who hold 
that the enjoyment of a good meal is merely a form 
of sybaritic indulgence. 

When Ruskin wrote his "Modern Painters" he re- 
ferred to the indulgence of taste as an "ignoble source 
of pleasure." He lived to realize the foolishness of 
this sneer; in one of those amusing footnotes which he 
contributed to the final edition of that great work, 
and in which he often assails his own former opinions 
with merciless severity, he denounces the "cruelty and 
absurdity" of his failing to learn to appreciate the 
dainties provided by his father. But his earlier 
opinion reflected the general attitude of the time to- 
ward the pleasures of the table. 

Fortunately, in our efforts to fight the great Ameri- 
can plague — dyspepsia — we are no longer seriously 
hampered by that Puritan severity which caused the 
father of Walter Scott, when young Walter one day 
expressed his enjoyment of the soup, to promptly mix 
with it a pint of water to take the devil out of it. 

America's leading educator, Ex-President Eliot of 



IMPORTANCE OF FLAVOR 43 

Harvard, has expressed the more rational view of our 
time in these words: "Sensuous pleasures, like eating 
and drinking, are sometimes described as animal, and 
therefore unworthy, but men are animals and have a 
right to enjoy without reproach those pleasures of ani- 
mal existence which maintain health, strength, and 
life itself." 

We may go farther than that, asserting that not 
only have we a right to enjoy the pleasures of the 
table, but it is our moral duty to do so. The highest 
laws of health demand of us that we get as much 
pleasure out of our meals as possible. To prove this 
statement is the main object of the present volume, 
nearly every page of which bears witness to its truth, 
directly or indirectly. 

GLADSTONE AND FLETCHER. 

There is an old German proverb to the effect that 
if food is properly chewed it is half digested: Gut 
gekaut ist halb verdaut. 

This is literally true, but in England and America, 
although physicians and others have long known it 
to be so, it was not impressed on the general pub- 
lic's attention until the newspapers began to comment 
— some seriously, others facetiously — on the statement 
that Gladstone, in 1848, adopted certain rules for 
chewing food to which he ever after adhered and to 
which some observers attributed his remarkable phys- 



44 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

ical vigor. "Previous to that," said the "Pall Mall 
Gazette," "he had always paid great attention to the 
requirements of nature, but at that date he laid down as 
a rule for his children that thirty- two bites should be 
given to each mouthful of meat and a somewhat lesser 
number to bread, fish, etc." 

Now Gladstone was wrong in suggesting that meat 
needed more munching than bread. The stomach takes 
care of meat if it is not swallowed in too large chunks ; 
whereas bread, as well as potatoes, together with oat- 
meal and other cereals, no matter how soft, should be 
kept in the mouth some time to enable the saliva to 
partly digest them and prepare them for the lower 
viscera. 

This error, however, did not detract seriously from 
the value of Gladstone's directions. The main thing 
was that his "home rule" called the attention of two 
nations to the unwisdom of bolting food and the ad- 
vantage to health resulting from keeping it for some 
time in the mouth. In its far-reaching effect on mil- 
lions in two worlds it was perhaps of greater and more 
lasting value than any of his acts as a statesman. 

This assertion gains strength from the fact that it 
was Gladstone's example that started Horace Fletcher 
on his road as a reformer of the foolish eating habits 
of Americans, and others, but Americans in particu- 
lar. 

He has himself related (in the "Ladies' Home Jour- 



IMPORTANCE OF FLAVOR 45 

nal" for September, 1909) how it was that his thoughts 
were first directed into this channel through an epi- 
curean friend who had a snipe estate among the 
marshlands of Louisiana and a truffle preserve in 
France, and who faithfully followed Gladstone's rules 
in regard to the thorough chewing of food. In 1898 
Mr. Fletcher began to work out the problem for him- 
self, to the great advantage of his health. 

At the age of forty he was an old man, on the way 
to a rapid decline. His hair was white, he weighed 
217 pounds, he was harrowed by indigestion, and had 
"that tired feeling." At the age of sixty, after eleven 
years of experiment, he had reduced his weight to 170 
pounds, felt strong and well, and had forgotten what 
it was to have the tired feeling. 

His experience thus was similar to that of the Italian 
nobleman, Luigi Cornaro (1467-1566), who was 
a dissipated wreck at the age of forty, but who by re- 
forming his way of eating, regained his health and 
lived to be nearly a hundred. After his eighty-third 
year he wrote four treatises on diet and* longevity; his 
autobiography has passed through more than forty 
English editions. His wisdom might be summed up 
in these words: "As you grow older eat less." 

Horace Fletcher is the Cornaro of the ninteenth cen- 
tury. Everybody who ever "knows he has a stomach" 
should read one or both the books he has written on 
this subject: "The A B-Z of Our Own Nutrition," and 



46 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

"The New Glutton or Epicure." The first named 
owes its value largely to the fact that it includes re- 
prints of valuable papers by eminent men of science 
and physicians, the investigations of most of whom 
were in part prompted, or inspired, by Mr. Fletcher's 
writings. The most important of these are Dr. Har- 
vey Campbell's Observations on Mastication, and 
Prof. Pawlow's articles on Psychic Influence in Di- 
gestion. 

Most persons labor — or act as if they labored — 
under the delusion that the mouth was made chiefly 
for the ingestion of food and that the sole use of saliva 
is to lubricate it so that it can be easily and quickly 
swallowed. Mr. Fletcher did not discover the fact 
that the mouth is also a most important organ of di- 
gestion^ with the aid of saliva; but he emphasized this 
important fact in his writings as no other writer had 
ever done, proclaiming it from the housetops till thou- 
sands began to listen and heed and learn and benefit 
by his preaching; and therein lies the importance of 
his name in the history of dietetic reform. 

The gist of his doctrine may be given in a few words : 
keep all food (soft as well as hard, liquid as well as 
solid, moist as well as dry) in the mouth and chew 
it till it has become thoroughly mingled with the 
saliva, has lost all its flavor, and is ready to disap- 
pear down the throat without an effort at swallow- 
ing. Gladstone's directions in regard to thirty-two 




HORACE FLETCHER 



IMPORTANCE OF FLAVOR 47 

masticatory movements are all right for some foods,, 
but others require no more than twenty, while for 
some (onions) seven hundred hardly suffice to re- 
move the odor and make them digestible. Unless the 
mouth thus does its work, the lower digestive tract has 
to do it at ten times the expenditure of vital force, and 
the result is dyspepsia. 

Never, surely, was preaching more needed than these 
sermons of Horace Fletcher to the victims of America's 
national scourge of chronic indigestion. 

It cannot be denied that there is a considerable 
amount of questionable faddism and exaggeration in 
his doctrines. He, himself, frankly apologizes for 
such details in them as "may suggest the scrappiness 
and extravagance of an intemperate screed," on the 
ground that "so-called screeds sometimes attract at= 
tention where sober statement fails to be heard"; which 
is unfortunately true. 

Many of Fletcher's followers accept his exaggera- 
tions along with the sound parts of his doctrines. 
They endorse the statements that he, "in inaugurating 
the chewing reform has done more to help suffering 
humanity than any other man of the present genera- 
tion"; or, as another writer, a physician, put it in a 
letter to him : "What you have done to unfold physio- 
logic mastication means more for human weal than all 
the mere medical prescribers have given the world from 
Adam to the present day." 



48 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

It cannot be denied that medical and other scientific 
writers were culpable in not enlightening the public 
on these important matters, and it serves them right, 
therefore, if Fletcher has got the credit and the fame 
for doing this. It is estimated that there are already 
more than 200,000 "Fletcherites" in the United States. 
In the hope of increasing their number, in the rational 
sense of the word, let me dwell on a few of the things 
in which, in my opinion, Mr. Fletcher is right, and 
some of those beside which readers of his books will 
do well to place question marks. In particular, I wish 
to call further attention to his valuable remarks on 
the necessity of doing more "mouth work" than most 
of us do, and on the importance of agreeable Flavor in 
food as an aid to digestion. 

Many thousands of otherwise healthy persons be- 
wail the fact that they have to avoid some of their 
favorite dishes because they find them indigestible. 
To these individuals Fletcherism, as endorsed by Dr. 
Campbell, brings the cheering message that they can 
eat anything they please provided they give it the 
proper mouth treatment. 

Inasmuch as individuals differ in regard to the sup- 
ply of saliva, no general rules can be laid down as to 
how many bites any particular mouthful requires. 
One person may dispose of a morsel of bread in thirty 
mastications while another may need fifty before it has 
disappeared down the throat without an effort at swal- 



IMPORTANCE OF FLAVOR 49 

lowing. Mr. Fletcher once had a tussle with a chal- 
lot, or young onion, which "required 722 mastications 
before disappearing through involuntary swallowing." 
But when it was down it left no odor upon the breath 
and created no disturbance whatever. 

Could anything more triumphantly proclaim the 
wonders of Fletcherism? 

Here is another miracle : "Abundant experiment has 
been made by those to whom 'Boston brown bread' was 
formerly little less than a poison, to prove the as- 
sertion that, sufficiently mixed with saliva, it is per- 
fectly digestible and that the delicious taste of the 
bread after forty or fifty bites — about one-half minute 
— gets sweeter and sweeter, and attains its greatest 
sweetness and most delicate taste at the very last, when 
it has dissolved into liquid form and most of it has es- 
caped into the stomach." 

THE HARM DONE BY SOFT FOODS. 

Dr. Campbell, whose admirable articles on The Im- 
portance of Mastication cannot be too urgently 
brought to the reader's attention, 1 has pointed out a 
very important reason why at present, more than at 
any other time in the history of man, there is need of 
mouth digestion. 

The art of cooking has had a beautifying effect on 

1 They first appeared in the London Lancet, in July and August, 
1903, and are reprinted in Fletcher's A. B.-Z. of Nutrition, pp. 96-179. 



50 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

the human face. The jaws and teeth have become 
smaller because they are no longer called upon to bite 
off and chew raw, tough, and fibrous foods, as they 
were in primitive days. One of the results of agricul- 
tural progress has been to diminish the fibrous, cel- 
lulosic food and make it more easy to masticate. The 
food of to-day is for the most part soft and pappy, of 
a kind which does not compel thorough mastication; so 
much so that Dr. Campbell thinks we may speak of 
this as "the age of pap." 

Beginning with the babes, we pour into their stomachs 
all kinds of artificial saccharine foods in liquid or semi- 
liquid form, following this up, later on, with such 
viands as mashed potatoes and gravy, rusks soaked in 
milk, milk puddings, bread dipped in bacon fat, 
pounded mutton, thin bread and butter, and the like. 
Food of this kind does not invite mastication (nor 
have mothers been taught to teach their children to 
keep it in the mouth, the doctor might have added). 
"Hence the instinct to masticate has little opportunity 
of exercise and not being properly exercised, tends to 
die out. Small wonder that the child nourished on 
such pappy food acquires the habit of bolting it, and 
learns to reject hard, coarse foods in favor of the softer 
kinds; everything, nowadays, must be tender, pultace- 
ous, or 'short.' " 

The evils resulting from the bolting of this soft 
food by children and adults alike are of the gravest 



IMPORTANCE OF FLAVOR 51 

and most alarming kind. Overeating and habitual in- 
digestion are two of them. Morbid craving for food 
not needed is another. It is not improbable that the 
habitual bolting of food, by the prolonged irritation 
to which it gives rise, may predispose to cancer of the 
stomach. Napoleon was a notoriously fast eater and 
it is well known that he died from this disease. 

Dr. Campbell also agrees with Sir Frederick Treves 
that the neglect of the mastication of food is a potent 
cause of appendicitis. Solid lumps, especially in the 
case of such articles as pineapple, preserved ginger, 
nuts, tough meat and lobster, are apt to pass beyond 
the pylorus and, escaping intestinal digestion, to lodge 
in the ccecum and precipitate an attack of that dreaded 
disease, the most common predisposing cause of which 
is a loaded ccecum, often preceded by constipation. 

Summing up his extremely valuable paper on the 
Evils of Insufficient Mastication, Dr. Campbell comes 
to the conclusion that "an appalling amount of misery 
and suffering may be saved by the simple expedient of 
inculcating the habit of efficient mastication." 

It is difficult to teach an old dog new tricks. I have 
noticed again and again how hard it is to teach adults 
to "Fletcherize." They begin it, find it irksome at 
first, and drop it. For thorough reform we must be- 
gin with infants ; but adults cannot be urged too 
strongly to persevere till the habit — like that of breath- 
ing — becomes automatic. The rewards in increased 



52 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

health and enjoyment of life and work are glorious. 

EPICUREAN DELIGHTS FROM PLAIN FOOD. 

To return to Fletcher's own contributions to this 
subject. Next to his dwelling on the importance of 
"mouth-work" he deserves most praise for his re- 
marks on the epicurean delights resulting from slow 
and rational eating. Herein again, it must be prem- 
ised, he was far from being the original discoverer; 
but he probably did more to call the general public's 
attention to the matter than any one else had done, 
thanks largely to his habit of introducing vivid il- 
lustrations and details of personal experiences. 

" My, but I never realized that potato is so good," 
exclaimed the young lady; and "Gracious! isn't this 
corn bully !" echoed the father. 

These exclamations express the outcome of one of 
Mr. Fletcher's experiments in teaching others how to 
get delicious pleasure from the simplest and common- 
est foods if munched according to his directions. 

If you bolt your food, he says, you get "none of the 
exquisite taste that Nature's way offers as an allure- 
ment for obeying her beneficent demands. The way 
of Nature is the epicurean way; the other way is noth- 
ing but piggish gluttony." It is the way of animals; 
and Fletcher named his book "The New Glutton or 
Epicure" to call attention to the two ways of taking 
food. 



IMPORTANCE OF FLAVOR 53 

"An epicurean cannot be a glutton. There may be 
gluttons who are less gluttonous than other gluttons, but 
epicurism is like politeness and cleanliness, and is the 
certain mark of gentility." A remark worthy of the 
French epigrammatists! 

Thackeray called attention to the exquisite enjoy- 
ment an epicure can derive from a slice of buttered 
brown bread. In the same spirit Fletcher writes: 
"For illustration, try a ship's biscuit — commonly called 
hardtack — and keep it in the mouth, tasting it as you 
would a piece of sugar, till it has disappeared entirely, 
and note what a treasure of delight there is in it." 

Again: "The most nutritious food does not require 
sauces. It may seem dry and tasteless to the first im- 
pression, but, as the juices of the mouth get possession 
of it, warm it up, solve its life-giving qualities out of 
it and coax it into usefulness, the delight of a new- 
found delicacy will greet the discoverer." 

HOW FLAVOR HELPS THE STOMACH. 

In all cases, be the food simple or the outcome of a 
French chef's culinary alchemy, it is its Flavor that 
makes it agreeable and by so doing stimulates the flow 
of the juices necessary for proper digestion. 

In the case of the mouth and its salivary glands this 
is obvious to all. Everybody knows that the frag- 
rance of good food "makes the mouth water." 

In the case of the stomach, the connection is much 



54 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

less obvious. Until a few years ago even the medical 
men were in the dark on this extremely important as- 










& if \ 



A French chef's culinary alchemy 

pect of the question, although French and German 
physiologists had made important discoveries. 



IMPORTANCE OF FLAVOR 5$ 

It remained for Professor Pawlow of St. Petersburg 
to throw the bright light of scientific experiment on this 
subject. 

He demonstrated in his St. Petersburg laboratory 
that the mere presence of food in a dog's stomach — 
which is like a man's in that respect — does not suffice 
to cause a flow of gastric juice, but that the psychic 
factor we call appetite — a keen desire for food — causes 
an abundant flow of that fluid, without which the di- 
gestion cannot proceed. 

Now it might be said that there was really no need 
of laboratory experiments to tell us that food eaten 
without enjoyment lies like lead in the stomach and 
does more harm than good. 

It is nevertheless a great advantage to have a sci- 
entific demonstration of the fact and an explanation 
of it, because it encourages us in the right way of 
eating. 

Instinct showed that way long ago; it did its best 
to intimate that food should be eaten with interest 
and enjoyment. 

Too often, unfortunately, no attention has been paid 
to this instinct. Among the Russians (who do not, in 
this respect, differ from other peoples) "an absolutely 
unphysiological indifference towards eating often ex- 
ists," Professor Pawlow says. "In wider circles of 
the community a due conception of the importance of 
eating should be disseminated. How often do the 



56 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

people who have charge of the commissariat pay at- 
tention solely to the nutritive value of the food, or 
place a higher value on everything else than taste !" 

Yet it is the "taste" (Flavor) of food that arouses 
the appetite. As the French say, "the appetite comes 
while we are eating." Medical men of various coun- 
tries in former times paid special attention to the res- 
toration of a patient's appetite. In more recent text 
books less attention is paid to appetite as a symptom; 
but Prof. Pawlow's experiments have again, and for 
all time, demonstrated its importance. 

Those young ladies who think it is "nice" and "femi- 
nine" to pretend to have no appetite should read the 
Pawlow papers, and have all that nonsense knocked 
out of their heads. A poor appetite is a danger sig- 
nal — a thing to arouse pity and to be cured, just like 
a headache or a fever. 

"Appetite juice" is one of the suggestive names Pro- 
fessor Pawlow gives to the fluid which digests food in 
the stomach. There is little or none of it for the man 
who eats without noticing his food, unable to distract 
his thoughts from his work, as so often happens to 
those who live in the midst of the incessant turmoil 
of large cities. This inattention to the act of eating 
(to the Flavor of the food) prepares the way for di- 
gestive disturbances with all the various diseases fol- 
lowing them. No medical treatment can help such a 
patient — unless he reforms and eats rationally. 



IMPORTANCE OF FLAVOR 57 

Thus, the studies of Dr. Pawlow fully bear out my 
contention as to the Vital Importance of Flavor in 
Food. 

There is one more of his observations to which super- 




An American quick-lunch 

lative importance attaches. One of his experiments 
on dogs showed that if food was given gradually in 
small quantities, it led to the secretion of much stronger 
gastric juice than when the animal was allowed to eat 
the whole ration at once. 

This was a laboratory demonstration of the wis- 
dom of the best medical treatment of a weak stomach; 



58 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

"and such a regulation of diet," continues the profes- 
sor, "is all the more necessary, since, in the common- 
est disorders of the stomach, only the surface layers 
of the mucous membrane are affected. It may, con- 
sequently, happen that the sensory surface of the 
stomach, which should take up the stimulus of the 
chemical excitant, is not able to fulfil its duty, and the 
period of chemical secretion, which ordinarily lasts for 
a long time, is for the most part disturbed, or even 
wholly absent. A strong psychic excitation, a keen 
feeling of appetite, may evoke the secretory impulse 
in the central nervous system and send it unhindered 
to the glands which lie in the deeper as yet unaffected 
layers of mucous membrane." 

Doubtless the very interesting physiological detail 
here pointed out by the eminent Russian professor, ex- 
plains the dietetic as well as gastronomic wisdom of 
the old fashioned table d'hote of the European hotels. 
Half a dozen or more courses follow one another 
leisurely in course of an hour or more during which the 
pleasant Flavor of one dish after another keeps the ap- 
petite on edge and gives plenty of time for the deeper 
as well as the surface layers of the glands to secrete 
their beneficent and comforting digestive juices. 

From such a leisurely dinner, with courses skilfully 
made up of contrasting flavors to prevent the appetite 
from flagging, we rise cheerful and at peace with all 
the world, whereas an American quick-lunch, or a rail- 



IMPORTANCE OF FLAVOR 59 

road dinner gulped down in ten minutes makes us feel 
like swearing off eating for all time. 

AN AMAZING BLUNDER. 

How far we have traveled away from that foolish, 
nay, criminal Puritan notion that enjoyment of the 
pleasures of the table is a reprehensible form of sensual 
indulgence — the notion which made Walter Scott's 
father pour hot water into the soup because the boy 
liked it! 

That attitude was a blunder, a huge blunder, as the 
preceding pages prove. 

A still bigger blunder, and one equally deplorable 
and mischievous, now claims our attention — a blunder 
so amazing, so incomprehensible that it seems almost 
incredible: the universal belief, among men of science 
as well as the laity, that the pleasures of the table 
come to us through the sense of taste. 

How I happened to discover that this notion is a 
blunder, I now beg the reader's permission to relate 
briefly. 

In 1878 Harvard University rewarded me for my 
hard work in the philosophical department (under 
Professors Bowen and Palmer) by giving me the Har- 
ris Fellowship, which enabled me to continue my study 
of physiological and comparative psychology for three 
years at the universities of Germany. 

I recall vividly my boyish delight in the pleasures of 



60 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

the senses of sight, hearing, and smell. During my 
college course and afterwards I diligently studied the 
phenomena of these senses in man and animals in all 
the books and scientific papers I could find; and thus 
it came about that my first magazine articles were on 
the ^Esthetic Value of Odors, and The Development 
of the Color Sense. The first of these was accepted 
by W. D. Howells, for the "Atlantic Monthly" (De- 
cember, 1880) ; the second, by Alfred Russell Wallace, 
for "Macmillan's Magazine" (London, December, 
1879). I mention these things to show that the senses 
of man and animals have been a subject of special inter- 
est with me for more than four decades, and that when 
I went to Germany, I took up the study of them not as 
an amateur but as one prepared (as well as eager) to 
make original researches. 

My most ardent desire was to work in the labora- 
tories of the University of Berlin under Professor 
Helmholtz, whose monumental books on the sensations 
of tone and on the phenomena of sight had revealed so 
many secrets to the world of science. Unfortunately 
he was not lecturing on those subjects at that time. 
Moreover, reperusal of his books made me feel as if 
he had covered all the most interesting ground. I 
therefore looked about for a region in which I could 
do some exploring on my own account, and soon found 
it in the functions of the senses of smell and taste. 

Concerning these two senses, the most absurdly in- 



AN AMAZING BLUNDER 61 

correct notions were current at that time even among 
leaders in science. Grant Allen, known as "the St. 
Paul t>f Darwinism," voiced the current biological 
opinion when he wrote that with man "smell survives 
with difficulty as an almost functionless relic"; and 
Darwin himself wrote that this sense is "of extremely- 
slight service" to man. 

The king of German philosophers, Kant, who was an 
epicure, maintained that smell is the least important 
of our senses, and that it is not worth while to culti- 
vate it. Nay, the king of epicures, Brillat-Savarin, 
wrote a famous book the very title of which, "Physi- 
ology of Taste," is a scientific blunder. Like every- 
body else, he believed in the existence of an infinite 
variety of tastes, and never suspected that, with the ex- 
ception of sweet, sour, salt and bitter, all our countless 
gastronomic delights come to us through the sense of 
smell. 

A NEW PSYCHOLOGY OF EATING. 

The French physiologist Longet and the German 
anatomist Henle were, so far as I could find, the only 
experts who had an inkling of the gastronomic impor- 
tance of the sense of smell; but they did not go so 
far as to formulate the theory I have just expressed in 
italics. My experiments showed me that not only is 
it impossible, with the nose clasped (or closed by a 
cold), to tell the difference between various kinds of 
meats, or cheeses, or cakes, or vegetables, but also — 



62 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

which no one had ever pointed out — that even in the 
case of sweet and sour substances which do gratify the 
palate, the sense of smell is much more important than 
the sense of taste. 

Vinegar, for example, is absolutely uninteresting un- 
less it has a "bouquet" — the aroma of the cider, wine, 
or malt of which it is made. And why is it that we 
are willing to pay from five to twenty times as much for 
candy as for plain sugar? Because the sugar appeals 
only to the taste, whereas the candy is usually per- 
fumed with the aroma of sarsparilla, wintergreen, 
vanilla, chocolate, and a hundred other flavoring in- 
gredients the fragrance of which we enjoy by exhal- 
ing through the nose while eating it. 

The emphasis lies on the word exhaling. It is con- 
sidered a breach of etiquette to smell of things at the 
table in the ordinary way, because it implies a doubt 
as to the freshness of the food. But there is a second 
way of smelling of which most persons are uncon- 
scious, although they practise it daily. Anatomy 
shows that only a small portion of the mucous mem- 
brane which lines the nostrils is the seat of the endings 
of the nerves of smell. In ordinary expiration the air 
does not touch this olfactory region. But when we eat 
in the right way we unconsciously guide the air impreg- 
nated with the Flavors of the food we are munching, 
into that region, and that is the way we enjoy our 
food. We do this unconsciously, I say; but now try 



IMPORTANCE OF FLAVOR 63 

and do it consciously, guiding the expired air very 
slowly through the nose, and your enjoyment of a 
meal will be quintupled. 

Obviously Kant made the mistake of his life when 
he said the sense of smell was not worth cultivating. 
It not only provides us with additional table pleasures, 
the hygienic and tonic value of which has been suffi- 
ciently dwelt upon, but it is a fact of unspeakable im- 
portance that the more we educate the nose, the more 
discriminating we make it, and the more stubbornly 
therefore we insist on having wholesome food only. 

This new psychology of eating I set forth for the 
first time in the "Contemporary Review" (London, No- 
vember, 1888), under the title of "The Gastronomic 
Value of Odors." It was commented on as a psy- 
chological curiosity, but otherwise attracted little at- 
tention. At that time there was not the same gen- 
eral interest that there is now in the food question. 
Even Gladstone's directions regarding eating were 
more frequently smiled at than followed. 

Since his day many things have happened to give 
the food question an aspect of superlative importance, 
particularly the wholesale adulterations described in 
the preceding pages. That among those who have 
helped to awaken the public to a realizing sense of 
the importance of this subject no one deserves more 
credit than Mr. Fletcher — who has been immortalized 
in the dictionaries by the inclusion of the verb "to 



64 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Fletcherize" — has been stated before. So beneficent, 
on the whole, has been his influence that I hesitate to 
point out any of his mistakes; but as some of them 
obscure the truth, I will do so. 

He first made public his views, in a crude form, 
eleven years after the appearance of my article on the 
gastronomic value of odors. That article anticipates 
some important details of his doctrines, but he evi- 
dently never saw it, because in his books he makes only 
one brief reference to the sense of smell and perpetuates 
all the old errors regarding that insolent pretender, the 
sense of taste. This is to be regretted, for it left his 
followers groping in the dark as to the best way of 
getting the most pleasure and benefit out of their food, 
at home and at their "munching parties." 

There is one detail of Fletcherism which every epi- 
cure will fight with his last drop of ink. If we all 
followed his example, living on griddle cakes, butter, 
and syrup (at a cost of eleven cents a day), or some 
other equally simple menu, as he advises, what would 
become of that delectable variety which is the spice 
of gastronomy, and what of the farmers, and the hun- 
dreds of industries which supply this variety 1 ? 

True gastronomic progress, I maintain, lies in the 
direction of multiplying the pleasures of the table — 
an important phase of our subject which will be dis- 
cussed in a later chapter. 

We must now turn the limelight once more on Un- 
gastronomic America. 




Ill 




OUR DENATURED FOODS 

EARING in mind the superlative im- 
portance to our well-being of Flavor in 
the food we eat, the reader is now in a 
position to appreciate the full force of a 
third indictment to be brought against 
those who spoil our food. The first indictment was 
that they use chemical preservatives which arrest di- 
gestion and often act as cumulative poisons; the sec- 
ond, that they use chemicals which enable unscrupu- 
lous persons to sell foods made of nauseating and dan- 
gerous raw material, so disguised as to fool the buyer. 
The culprits now to be arraigned are those who, 
from ignorance, indolence, or greed to get rich quick, 
adopt devices which spoil the Flavor of our food and 
thus destroy our appetite and undermine the health of 
the community. 

Denatured is the word used for alcohol that has 
been made unfit to drink by the addition of chemi- 

65 



66 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

cals, and denatured is hardly too strong a word to ap- 
ply to many if not most of the foods offered in the 
American markets and stores, the offense being ag- 
gravated by the fact that the prices usually asked for 
these are quite as high as those asked for foods pre- 
served by the wholesome old condimental methods, 
although the cost to the maker is only a fraction of 
what it would be if those methods were followed. 

Palatable, appetizing smoked bacon and hams are still 
to be found in our markets by those who know a thing 
or two, and sternly insist on getting what they ask 
for; but for the vast majority of consumers smoked 
meats have disappeared. Meats lose weight — up to 20 
per cent. — during the process of smoking, and there- 
fore bring the dealer less profit. What he offers is 
usually denatured — unappetizing and indigestible. 
The same holds true of smoked fish, which used to 
make an epicure's mouth water. Why it does so no 
longer is shown by the following paragraphs from 
Philadelphia, printed in the New York "Evening 
Post" : 

Fish Was Dyed, not Smoked 

The dairy and food bureau of the State Agricultural De- 
partment has discovered that a large number of delicatessen 
and other stores of this city have been for a long time selling 
"dyed" fish as a substitute for smoked fish. When Harry P. 
Cassidy, the agent of the bureau told the retail store proprietors 
what they were doing, they were surprised, as they had pur- 
chased the stuff as genuine smoked fish. 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 67 

Cassidy's attention to the food article was attracted by its 
rich red color. Purchasing some, he had it examined, and the 
expert reported that he could dye wool with the coloring matter 
extracted from it. In smoking fish there is a loss of fifteen 
pounds to every hundred, it is said, but in dyeing there is no 
loss at all. This permitted the violators of the law to undersell 
their competitors in the smoked fish industry. 

Nor is our fresh fish usually more palatable. New 
York, for instance, ought to be a paradise of fish eaters, 
yet how seldom is it served in prime condition, even 
in leading restaurants! In Germany they have vari- 
ous ways of bringing fish to market alive, even in in- 
terior towns; over here they are kept in cold storage 
for weeks, months — indeed years, although fish deteri- 
orates by this process much more rapidly than even 
poultry — of which more anon; and everybody knows 
that the poorest kind of fish just out. of the water is 
better than the best kind after it has been out a day 
or two. 

Were we a gastronomic nation we would rise in re- 
volt against the wholesale denaturing of our food to 
be presently described in more detail. We should in- 
sist on always having real French or German-style 
bread, with crisp, tasty crust, refusing the soggy loaves 
made of bleached, bolted flour robbed of its nutri- 
tious phosphates and sources of Flavor; refusing also 
the machine-polished rice deprived of its nutritious 
outer parts, in which lies the delicate Flavor of this 



68 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

cereal, leaving it pretty to look at, but, as one of the 
Government's agricultural experts, David Fairchild, 
has forcibly expressed it, "as tasteless as the paste 
that a paper-hanger brushes on his rolls of wall- 
paper." 

We should exclude the chemically greened teas 
dumped into our groceries because they are not wanted 
in any other country. We should protest against the 
peaches and pears and other fruits formerly brought 
into our markets soft, sun-ripened, luscious, but now 
offered to us hard, unripe, flavorless. 

The melancholy list of gastronomic misdeeds might 
be prolonged indefinitely. 

In all these cases, let me emphasize this fact once 
more, that what is eliminated from the food is its very 
soul, its precious Flavor, which makes it appetiz- 
ing and enjoyable and therefore digestible. We al- 
low covetous or ignorant manufacturers as well as 
incompetent or indolent cooks to spoil our naturally 
good food because we do not as a nation, realize that 
on its pleasurableness depend our health and comfort, 
our happiness and capacity for hard work, more than 
perhaps on anything else — a point which cannot be 
emphasized too often. 

Now for a few details, beginning with the treat- 
ment to which our poultry is subjected, which has 
long been a national calamity and a scandal of the 
first order. 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 69 



FOUL FOWL. 



Perhaps more than anything else, what makes us 
stand before the world as a deplorably ungastronomic 
nation is our tolerance of the tainted, unpalatable, cold- 
storage poultry served in public eating places as well 
as in private houses in nine cases out of ten. 

We spent the months of May to September, 1912, 
in Europe, traveling in France, Switzerland, Italy, 
Germany, and England. Nearly every day we ate 
chicken, or some other kind of poultry and not once did 
we have any that was in the least like our cold-storage 
fowls; everything was fresh, sweet, juicy, and appetiz- 
ing. Again and again I said to my wife, or she to me : 
"I wish we could get such chicken in New York!" 

An American lady of wealth said to me a few years 
ago that one of the reasons why she went to Europe 
every summer was that she liked good things to eat 
and could get them so much more easily and regularly 
abroad — particularly butter, and her favorite dish, 
chicken. She knew of the poulet de Bresse — that ex- 
plained it all. I shall never forget, though I live an- 
other half-century, my first taste of that particular 
brand of fowl. I had arrived at one of the leading 
Paris hotels too late for the table d'hote, and think- 
ing I was not hungry, ordered nothing but a portion 
of chicken and a bowl of salad. The waiter brought 
an enormous portion, and I had hardly tasted it when 



7 o FOOD AND FLAVOR 

I found I was ravenously hungry. Not a shred of it 
was left. 

The delicious taste of that sort of fancy poultry is 
due in part to the particular breed, but more still to 
the use of special kinds of food which give a rich and 
delicate flavor to the flesh, as the so-called wild celery 
of the Chesapeake Bay does in the case of our best 
ducks and turtles. 

Nature provides our canvasback and redhead ducks 
and terrapin — not too bountifully, it is true — but when 
it comes to mortal man's treatment, in this country, 
of the poultry that has to take the place of the formerly 
abundant game, what do we see 1 ? A state of affairs 
that would not be tolerated one week on the European 
continent. 

It is officially estimated that from 75 to 90 per cent, 
of all the poultry produced in the United States is 
preserved in cold storage for months, often for years. 
What is worse still, "only a very small percentage of 
the fowls which are placed in cold storage are drawn," 
the result being that by a physiological process known 
as osmosis the meat becomes tainted in a most of- 
fensive manner. The warehouse men and dealers have 
for years been fighting furiously against the health 
boards of various cities and states for the privilege of 
perpetuating this state of affairs, which greatly simpli- 
fies the poultry business and enables them to sell the 
entrails of a fowl at the same price per pound as the 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 71 

meat; but the long-suffering public has at last become 
thoroughly aroused, convinced that many obscure dis- 
orders of the digestive tract are due to the consumption 
of undrawn and other cold-storage poultry, not to 
speak of the horror of eating such stuff. 

A young woman informs me that one day she went 
into a butcher's shop (in a part of town where pros- 
perous families live) and ordered a chicken. The 
butcher took one down, but when he cut it open such 
a stench came from it that she stepped back in horror. 
Yet the man tried to persuade her to take it, remark- 
ing: "That's all right! Just wash it in a solution of 
borax, or in vinegar and water and the odor will disap- 
pear." 

This happened in New York City in the year 1912; 
it was not an exceptional case; thousands of such of- 
fensive carcasses are sold in American cities daily. 
Nor is it necessary to cut them open to know that they 
are unfit for food. Their greenish, mummified, rigid 
appearance reveals their unpalatable condition. 
Daily, for years, as I have walked along the streets of 
New York and seen these hideous bird corpses brazenly 
exposed for sale, I have wondered at a community 
which will tolerate such a thing. As the authors of Bul- 
letin No. 1 1 5 of the Bureau of Chemistry 1 say, a care- 

1 "A Preliminary Study of the Effects of Cold Storage on Eggs, 
Quail, and Chickens," by H. W. Wiley, with the collaboration of M. 
E. Pennington, G. W. Styles, Jr., B. J. Howard, and F. C. Cook. 
Washington, 1908. 



72 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

ful inspection of cold-storage fowls before cooking 
"would do much to destroy any appetite which might 
otherwise have been manifested for these birds when 
cooked." 

On pages 100-101 of his monumental work on 
foods and their adulteration which should be read by 
all consumers as well as dealers because of its impar- 
tial statement of the case, Dr. Wiley remarks perti- 
nently that "the keeping of chickens with the intestinal 
contents undisturbed does not appeal to the imagina- 
tion of the consumer any more than would the freez- 
ing of the carcass of a beef or hog with the viscera re- 



maining in it. 



Elsewhere the great reformer put his finger on the 
most vulnerable and undeniable aspect of the storage 
business: "Palatability is one of the elements of 
wholesomeness, and we find in cold storage a tremen- 
dous decrease in palatability" 

From this kind of tainted, unappetizing, unpalatable 
chicken to the poulet de Bresse, what a long road we 
have to travel. Under present conditions, as a matter 
of course, it makes no difference what we feed our 
fowls; all are foul alike, and will remain so as long as 
the American public remains content to fall so far be- 
low the European gastronomic level. 

The packers and dealers, of course, laugh at Dr. 
Wiley's statement that, under the present scientific 
methods of production, poultry can be furnished in a 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 73 

fresh state all the year round (as it is in Europe). 
They do not want it fresh; they want it in their re- 
frigerators so they can regulate and artificially 
raise prices. The worst offenders are the men who 
speculate in storage fowls, making, say, $10,000 or 
$20,000 in one day. That enables them to cross the 
Atlantic and eat edible chicken in Paris. 

The simplest way for the consumer to thwart the 
conspirators against his appetite and stomach is to buy 
of genuinely Kosher butchers, who by their tenets are 
not allowed to handle cold-storage fowls; or direct of 
the farmer, with whom an arrangement can be made 
to send the freshly killed and promptly cleaned poultry 
to one's home. In this way the total cost does not ex- 
ceed regular city prices, and oh ! the difference in the ef- 
fect on our well-being, not to speak of getting even with 
the "icemen." 

The introduction of parcel's post greatly reduced 
the cost of this method of securing fresh poultry. 
In European countries, particularly France and Ger- 
many, the parcel's post has done much to eliminate 
middlemen, and many thousands of consumers make 
use of this chance to get provisions fresh and direct 
from the producer. 

There are reasons to believe that the present high 
prices of beef and mutton will never come down again, 
but will climb higher still because the former vast graz- 
ing-grounds of the West are being cut up into farms. 



74 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

But to the raising of chickens there is no limit. By- 
applying the methods of intensive farming the supply 
can be steadily increased and prices lowered. Chicken 
day is destined to become more and more frequent, and 
it is for the consumer to decide whether his chicken 
dinner shall be appetizing, enjoyable, and beneficial, 
or remain what it is now in most cases, a gastronomic 
calamity. 

From the point of view of Flavor, which is the main 
theme of the present volume, this subject is of such 
importance that a few more pages must be devoted to 
it. 

THE FRENCH WAY VERSUS THE AMERICAN. 

In Paris one eats the best chicken in the world; in 
New York, as a rule, the worst. How do they do it 
in France"? The answer will be given in the chapter 
on French Gastronomic Supremacy; here let us antici- 
pate only a few details as supplied to the Government 
of the United States by Newton B. Ashby, special 
agent of the Bureau of Animal Industry and published 
in its Sixteenth Annual Report (1899). 

The French, he notes, "are economic people, and the 
system of sending young and immature chickens to 
market is not practised. The fowls sent to market 
are from 4 to 8 months old. They are carefully fed 
and grown for market instead of being allowed to 
scavenge. For instance, the chickens are given clean 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 75 

water instead of being allowed the run of filthy pools 
and puddles." 

The method of slaughter, he goes on to say, "seems 
to be chiefly by cutting the jugular vein. The fowl 




How they do it in France ? 

is then dry plucked very carefully to prevent tearing 
the flesh, and is drawn through the vent." 

Note those last six words. They show that the 
French do not allow chickens to remain undrawn even 
one day; for, as Mr. Ashby continues, "the fowls are 
packed the afternoon or evening of the day of 
slaughter, and despatched to Paris by special express 
train that night. They are due in Paris before five 
o'clock in the morning. They are delivered at once 
to the market, and are sold on the day of arrival, so 



76 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

that French fowls are generally disposed of in the 
market within twenty to twenty-four hours after 
being killed. ... In July and August many 
French fowls come to the market alive." 

"The Paris markets, and French markets generally," 
we are further told, "do not take kindly to foreign 
poultry or meat." Such poultry would of course have 
to be brought in cold storage, and what the nation 
which knows most about eating wants is fresh chicken. 
"Foreign poultry is not in demand in Paris," because 
the French know and have known for generations that 
to freeze meat is to spoil it. On this subject I shall 
have some further remarks in a later section on the 
Roast Reef of Old England. 

Now look at the way much of the poultry consumed in 
American cities is gathered. Dr. Cavana of Oneida, N. Y., 
who found no fewer than eleven distinct groups of bacteria 
in the flesh of a single undrawn fowl, remarked, in a lecture 
delivered in 1906, at the Annual Convention of Railway 
Surgeons, that poultry stocks are collected for eastern cities 
from all parts of the country. He goes on to say that 
after slaughter the feathers are removed and the carcasses 
packed in barrels, generally without further dressing. The 
head, feet, and legs, as well as the craw of partially digested food> 
therefore, is left in the sealed cavities of the fowls, forming con- 
ditions which force the general infection of the tissues by the 
flagellated, or rapidly swimming intestinal bacteria, which double 
their quantity and numbers every forty minutes, a single bacillus 
being capable of developing over forty-two billion germs in 
twenty-four hours. Their shipments are made by rail and 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 77 

steamship, and cover transit periods of several days before reach- 
ing the cold atmospheres of the storage warehouses. 

"To determine the activity of these germs and the period re- 
quired for their permeation of the tissues in the slaughtered 
undrawn fowl, we caused to be made a series of experiments, 
the results of which justify the belief that a great percentage 
of the infected poultry and game stock in storage became so 
infected before reaching the low temperature of the storage 
warehouses." 

Nor does ordinary cold storage destroy the noisome 
bacteria. They are merely scotched, to revive and 
multiply at the first opportunity. 

One of the principal objections to cold-storage 
poultry is that after being taken from the storehouse 
they decompose much more quickly than fresh birds. 

Some dealers aggravate the evil by soaking the 
poultry when taken out of storage in cold water for 
the purpose of thawing. This adds to its weight, to 
the profit of the dealer, but it "causes heavy bacterial 
infection," as Dr. Charles Harrington, secretary of 
the Massachusetts Board of Health, has pointed out. 
Dr. Pennington, in an article on Changes in Chickens 
in Cold Storage, to which we shall recur, refers to a 
case in which a frozen fowl, after being immersed in 
water, had increased in weight eleven per cent, (to 
the dealer's profit). 

In Bulletin 144 of the United States Department of 
Agriculture we read: 



78 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

"Under precisely the same conditions of temperature and 
humidity, drawn fowls will keep from twenty to thirty days 
longer than those not drawn. The presence of undigested food 
and of excrementitious substances in animals which have been 
killed most certainly favors the tainting of the flesh and gen- 
eral decomposition. The viscera are the first parts to show 
putrescence, and allowing these to remain within the body can- 
not do otherwise than favor infection of the flesh with bacteria 
and ptomaines, even if osmosis does not actually carry putrid 
juices to contiguous tissues. Hunters know the value of draw- 
ing birds as soon as possible after they have been shot, in order 
to keep them fresh and sweet and to prevent their having a 
strong intestinal flavor." 

Read also the following weighty remarks reprinted 
from Senate Report No. 1991, March 22, 1906: 

The process of decomposition and putrefaction begins at once 
after the death of the animal. Cold storage and freezing may 
limit the rotting process, but do not entirely stop it. When 
poultry or animals are taken from cold storage and are thawed 
out for exhibition and sale, the decomposition continues with 
marked energy, impregnating the flesh with poisons — and this 
decomposition is exceedingly rapid even when the poultry is 
kept in the market or grocery refrigerator, the temperature of 
which is much higher than that of the cold-storage warehouse. 
Flesh in which the blood has been permitted to remain is partic- 
ularly susceptible to such decomposition, and this susceptibility 
is increased by the long period of freezing and thawing. 

Even with poultry which is "freshly killed" there is fre- 
quently a period of several days between the time of slaughter- 
ing and sale. Not only is it dangerous, but it is repugnant to 
our sense of decency, that the flesh we are to eat shall lie 
for several days in close contact with putrefying animal matter. 

Undoubtedly undrawn poultry, fish, and game have caused 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 79 

many cases of poisoning which have been wrongfully attributed 
to other sources. The poisoning resulting often resembles that 
caused by other poisons administered by persons or taken with 
suicidal intent. Many sufferers from digestive troubles — head- 
ache, nausea, colic, and diarrhea after eating, owe their ail- 
ments to tainted foods. 

We are advised that the reason for slaughtering poultry with- 
out thorough bleeding is the saving in the weight of the fowl, 
and this reason is doubtless also one for the storing of poultry 
and offering it for sale without removing the viscera. There 
is, however, no reason why the consumer should be compelled 
to purchase a large percentage of excreta, offal, and refuse with 
his poultry. We would not tolerate the addition of a certain 
percentage of weight in the form of entrails of the steer with 
each beefsteak we buy. The consumer purposes to buy edible 
food and not the disgusting waste which should be eliminated 
in the process of slaughtering and dressing. It is just as rea- 
sonable to ask the consumer to buy hogs, calves, and lambs 
without the intestines removed as to solicit his purchase of un- 
drawn turkeys and chickens. 

WHY DO WE EAT POULTRY? 

After the appearance, in "The Century Magazine" of 
November, 1911, of my article on Ungastronomic 
America, in which I denounced the practice of offering 
the public undrawn, cold-storage poultry, I was bom- 
barded with abusive letters from packers and others, 
and a periodical, called "The Steward," fancied that it 
had completely demolished me by quoting the results 
obtained by Dr. Mary E. Pennington, in collaboration 
with Evelyn Witmer and H. C. Pierce, during a series 
of observations described in a circular entitled "The 



80 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Comparative Rate of Decomposition in Drawn and 
Undrawn Market Poultry" published in 1911 by the 
Department of Agriculture. This result of these ob- 
servations was that "undrawn poultry decomposes more 
slowly than does poultry which has been either wholly 
or partially eviscerated." 

This statement does not agree with the conclusion 
reached and printed in the Bulletin No. 144 to which 
I have already referred, that "under precisely the same 
conditions of temperature and humidity, drawn fowls 
will keep from twenty to thirty days longer than those 
not drawn." 

This statement is doubtless correct — provided the 
fowls have been eviscerated in such a way as to keep 
the cavity absolutely free from contamination. If 
this is not done, the drawn fowl will, for obvious 
reasons, spoil even sooner than the undrawn. It is not 
usually done by the American packers; and the moral 
is, not that undrawn fowl is preferable to drawn fowl 
for packing, but that these packers should send their 
men to France or Germany to learn how properly to 
draw fowls. 

The consumer, anyway, is not interested in "keeping 
qualities." What he wants is chicken that is good 
to eat, and the shorter a time it has been kept, the better 
for him, in every way. 

Dr. Wiley refers to experiments which have "shown 
the advisability of packing drawn poultry in tin car- 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 81 

tons, carefully closed"; adding that "fowls thus treated 
preserve to a remarkable degree their freshness and 
palatability." 

If that degree of freshness and palatibilty is suffi- 
cient to satisfy the consumer, then cold storage has a 
future. If not, cold storage is doomed, for undrawn, 
frozen poultry will, I feel sure, not be eaten much 
longer by the American public. 

Why do we eat poultry, anyway? Surely not 
merely because we want food. If that were the case, 
why waste money on expensive chicken or turkey, when 
we could get the same amount of nourishment from 
many other foods at a mere fraction of the cost 1 ? The 
reason why we eat chicken in preference to those other 
foods is that we want to enjoy its flavor. And we do 
not want frozen, undrawn poultry, not only because 
the freezing spoils the flavor but because the leaving 
of the entrails in the animal makes it unwholesome. 

One of the main arguments of the packers in favor 
of leaving fowls undrawn is that they dry out sooner 
when drawn. A more deadly boomerang it would be 
difficult to throw. There is only one way in which 
the drying carcass of a fowl can get its moisture : from 
the contents of the entrails. That is what is meant 
by osmosis. Thus out of their own mouths the 
packers stand convicted of offering the public fowl 
which is disgustingly tainted. 

The best part of the fowl — the second joint — gets 



82 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

the taint soonest, because it lies nearest the intestines. 
The wings and drumsticks get it last. It is impor- 
tant to know this, because it explains why experts may- 
differ as to the time it takes to spoil the flavor of a 
stored bird. Usually the process is quite rapid. 

The whole question of the tainting of meat by os- 
mosis deserves much more attention than it has re- 
ceived. A wild boar has to be eviscerated at once after 
being killed. If this is not done, none of the meat 
is fit to eat except the head — which explains why "wild 
boar's head," and the head alone — often figures on 
bills of fare in France and Germany. My wife, who 
was brought up in Southern France knew a wealthy 
silk merchant, a great hunter in his own domains, who 
always promptly removed the entrails of the boars he 
killed, before the carcass grew cold, the consequence be- 
ing that all the meat was good to eat, as his friends 
were given many a chance to find out. 

For several years some of the New York butchers 
have indulged in the custom of exhibiting in their 
windows the carcasses of lambs with their pelts still 
on. If a Paris butcher did that, the first of his cus- 
tomers coming along would ask him if he didn't know 
that unless the pelt is taken off at once after killing 
a mouton, the meat gets from it a disagreeable 
"sheepy" flavor — which is a very different thing from 
the unique and delicious flavor properly dressed mut- 
ton has. 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 83 

Perhaps the most striking illustration of the rapid 
action of osmosis is provided by venison, which is un- 
fit to eat if the deer has been tortured by a cruel chase. 
Its terror affects the digestive juices, and the whole 
body becomes tainted. 

IS COLD STORAGE A BLESSING? 

In an editorial entitled "Cold Storage Hardly a 
Blessing" the New York "Times" called attention dur- 
ing the holiday season of 1911 to the fact that the price 
of cold-storage turkeys was six cents a pound less 
than that of the fresh-killed birds. "This difference of 
almost 25 per cent, is an admission by the cold-storage 
people, forced from them by unalterable public 
opinion, that their much- wanted wares are to just 
about that extent inferior to those which they vocifer- 
ously declare to be no better." 

Quoting the happy expression that cold-storage 
fowls taste "as if they had been buried and dug up 
again," the same writer remarks: "None of us really 
knows how fowls do taste after they have gone through 
that process. We can imagine the flavor, however, 
and do, noses helping tongues." 

Were it not for the storage people, chickens and 
eggs would come into our markets fresh, cheap, and in 
abundance at the time when they are at their best. But 
it is precisely when they are at their best and cheapest 
that the storage men corner the market and hold the 



84 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

goods till they are good no more; whereupon they sell 
them at their own prices, largely increased through 
gambling. In view of such facts the "Times" refers 
to cold storage as "a baleful invention*" 

A baleful invention it certainly is — and a needless 
one, too. To quote Dr. Wiley again: "Poultry is 
a food product which under the present scientific 
methods of production can be furnished in a fresh 
state all the year. The necessity for cold storage, 
therefore, is not so apparent in this case as in that of 
fruit and other perishable foods." 

The American public, surely, will not much longer 
tolerate the present condition of affairs. There are 
packers and packers. Some are more careful and 
cleanly in their methods than others; but cold-storage 
fowl at its best is more or less denatured, and at its 
worst it is worse than denatured, putting us almost on 
a level with the African Bushmen who, when they kill 
a sheep, eat the entrails with their contents. I would 
no more eat such undrawn storage poultry as is placed 
daily before thousands of my countrymen than I would 
the flesh of a hyena or a vulture. 

It was estimated that, in 1912, $75,000,000 
worth of poultry was consumed in New York City. 
Of this, only $1,500,000 represented the business 
done in live chickens, and nearly all of this went to 
the Kosher butchers of the East Side. Surely Chris- 
tians cannot afford to be less cleanly than Hebrews 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 85 

in regard to what they put in their stomachs. 

The time has come for Christians to gird up their 
loins and fight for untainted food on their tables, too. 
There is encouragement in the information that in 
one season 1,100 more cars of live poultry were shipped 
to New York City than the season before (1910), and 
that plants were being established near the city for 
providing poultry freshly slaughtered and dressed. 
The consumer must, however, make sure that the fowls 
are not only freshly killed but drawn within a few 
days; the second joint is sometimes tainted on the 
second day. Butchers and poultry dealers would 
make friends if they gave up the habit of charging for 
fowl at so much a pound including the intestines. Let 
them charge more per pound for the meat alone, re- 
fusing under any conditions to have an undrawn bird 
in their shops, and the poultry business will soon be 
doubled, nay, quintupled. 

The fact that fresh fowl costs more than frozen is 
due to artificial conditions which can be remedied and 
must be remedied. For the present, if you cannot af- 
ford a six-pound fowl, try one weighing three pounds. 
If your dealer understands — as mine understands — 
that you will not under any circumstances eat a cold- 
storage bird he will supply a fresh one. What you 
want is not quantity but quality — particularly the 
true chicken Flavor. In the chapter on Savory Cook- 
ing it will be shown how a few pounds of fresh chicken 



86 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

can be made to yield their delicious flavor to a dish 
much larger and much cheaper than would be afforded 
by a fowl double its size cooked in the usual way. 

In Europe, most persons travel third class on the 
railways because they cannot afford first or second. 
In this country, nearly everybody can afford to travel 
first class. Americans are always bound to have the 
best of everything — if they know how to get it. Only 
in the gastronomic world are they — with the exception 
of the Jews — traveling third class — eating third-rate 
poultry prepared by third-rate cooks. This cannot 
last. We can afford the best. Let us have it. 

SPOILING THE AMERICAN OYSTER. 

Nowhere in the world are oysters more abundant 
than in America. Nowhere are they cheaper or bet- 
ter. As a rule, too, we cook them well, in various 
styles; but in the opinion of most epicures a cooked 
oyster is an oyster spoiled. Its food value in any 
case, raw or cooked, is very small, and it is chiefly as 
a relish that those who know how to eat value it. But 
for years the public has been allowing the men who 
market oysters to eliminate the very elements which 
give them relish by soaking them in fresh water, which 
makes them bloated, blonde, and tasteless. 

The dealers declare that many consumers demand 
them that way; floating makes them bigger. There 
are such consumers; they sacrifice quality for quantity; 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 87 

they know not that usually the best oysters by far are 
the small brunettes straight from the deep sea; and 
they further demonstrate their gastronomic obtuseness 
by smothering their oysters under several strong con- 
diments, which in themselves would destroy their deli- 
cate, natural Flavor. 

In some of our States the government has come to 
the rescue of the epicure — who is in despair at this 
wholesale denaturing of his favorite delicacy — by en- 
acting laws against the soaking of oysters because few 
of the streams in which this is done are free from 
typhoid and other deadly germs; but many of us do 
not feel sure that the health boards (because of in- 
dolence or "graft") exercise the necessary supervision, 
and therefore we deprive ourselves of the cheap lux- 
ury which Europeans have most reason to envy us. At 
banquets, where everybody used to eat oysters on the 
half-shell, it is noticeable how many plates the waiters 
remove that have not been touched. 

Having thus summed up the indictment, let us con- 
sider a few of the more important details. 

The London "Lancet" of April 22, 1911, had an 
editorial article on Shell Fish and Disease in which it 
pointed out that while from the nature of the case 
the testimony is usually of a very circumstantial kind, 
"which only becomes convincing in its cumulative as- 
pects," there are instances on record like the outbreaks 
following certain banquets in Southampton and Ports- 



88 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

mouth which admitted of no doubt as to the source of 
the disease. 

Dr. H. T. Rulstrode made a comprehensive report 
upon enteric fever and gastro-enteritis in England 
to the Local Government Board of London, in 1906, 
in which he showed by means of maps how many of 
the mussel, oyster, and cockle beds were exposed to 
contamination, his revelations being, as the "Lancet" 
remarks, "decidedly disquieting." Even in cases where 
the shell-fish were collected from locations relatively 
remote from contamination by sewage they were likely 
to be "brought back and cleansed on shore much too 
near the mouths of sewers." England is thus in the 
same predicament as the United States, but that is 
small comfort for us. 

In an address before the New York Academy of Sci- 
ences delivered by Dr. George A. Soper, President of the 
Metropolitan Sewerage Commission and reported in 
the "Times" of March 14, 191 1, it was pointed out that 
there are over 500 sewer outlets discharging into the 
rivers and harbor of New York each day a volume 
of sewage that would fill the channel of the East River 
from the Brooklyn Bridge to a distance of fifteen 
miles. "New York gets many of its oysters from 
Jamaica Bay — about a million bushels a year. The 
water at this section is heavily polluted, and to this 
can no doubt be traced a great part of the typhoid 
that breaks out in this city. The Board of Health 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 89 

has found that 15 per cent, of all typhoid is due to 
the eating of polluted shell fish." 

James L. Kellogg, professor of biology in Wil- 
liams College, in his admirable book on Shell Fish 
Industries 1 sums up the results of his thorough study 
of this subject in a chapter on Bivalves in Relation to 
Disease. It may be stated as a fact, he says, that 
"epidemics are sometimes caused by eating uncooked 
oysters. Several times they have been traced directly 
to that source. The evidence collected on that point 
in this country and abroad is conclusive." 

There are four reasons for objecting to the process 
of "floating" oysters. The first — the danger of con- 
veying a deadly disease — has been sufficiently dwelt on. 
Let us now consider the second: 

Were all oysters taken from the ocean and not near 
the mouths of harbors or rivers that bear sewage, no 
one need ever hesitate to eat them raw. The trouble 
lies in the fact that, as Professor Kellogg puts it, "be- 
fore food mollusca are marketed they are almost in- 
variably placed for a few hours in fresh water to un- 
dergo what the oystermen term the drinking process. 
Oysters sold in shell as well as those that have been 
shucked are usually subjected to the fresh water treat- 
ment. To make delays and the cost of transportation 
as light as possible, the localities selected for this are 
almost without exception in harbors or river mouths 

1 New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1910. 



90 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

near large markets. In very many cases such waters 
bear the sewage of cities of hundreds of thousands of 
inhabitants." 

With these facts — which have often been pointed 
out — before him, is it necessary to call the reader's 
attention to the circumstance that even if it had never 
been proved that oysters can serve as conveyers of 
deadly diseases, the process of floating them — that is, 
bloating them with sewage — must be condemned as un- 
speakably vile and disgusting? 

What aggravates the matter is that oysters have 
what Professor Kellogg calls "wonderfully efficient 
mechanisms for straining dangerous organisms out of 
the water." "Several gallons of water every day pass 
through the gills of every full-grown oyster or clam, 
and every solid particle is removed from it and re- 
mains in the body." "It is thus plain that even if 
relatively few in the water, the chances are that a 
dangerous number of disease organisms will be strained 
out of it by these shell-fish." 

Indeed, were it not for the fact that most of these 
disease organisms are destroyed by the digestive fluids 
of oysters and those who eat them, there would be 
vastly more typhoid fever than there is now from the 
thirty million bushels that are sent to our markets 
every year from our shore beds. The danger comes 
from the organisms on the gills, or on the shell, which, 
in that case, it is not safe to handle. 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 91 

Berlin has its Rieselj 'elder — vast meadows and gar- 
dens made fertile with the city's sewage. This liquid 
sewage is subjected to such thorough chemical treat- 
ment that ere it reaches its destination it is perfectly 
harmless. When the Rieselj 'elder were opened, the 
city fathers had such confidence in their chemist that 
they ceremoniously drank some of this water. It was 
a disgusting, though perfectly safe thing to do. The 
eating of our sewage-bloated oysters is both disgusting 
and unsafe. 

"Cleanliness is next to godliness" is a motto which 
it is even more important to apply to the inside of the 
body than to the outside. 

After this demonstration of the dangers and the 
filthiness of the process of floating oysters, it is need- 
less to advance further arguments. But in order to 
complete the rout of the "floaters" — who have long 
fought so fiercely for the privilege of spoiling the 
American oyster — reference must be made to the two 
other indictments against them, because of the interest 
and importance attaching to them. One is moral and 
legal; the other, gastronomic. 

Dr. Wiley sums up the two in one sentence: "Not 
only does it (floating) deceive the customer in regard 
to the size of the oyster but it deprives the oyster of 
its proper taste and flavor." 

Osmosis comes into play in "floating," as he further 
points out: "By this process the body of the oyster af- 



92 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

fects a plumpness and largeness which materially in- 
creases its selling qualities, as it increases its weight 
and size and, therefore, the profits of the dealer. The 
principle of this process depends upon the fact that 
when a soft substance like an oyster, containing a min- 
eral salt in its composition, is brought in contact with 
water, a process of diffusion takes place which is 
known in chemical physics as osmosis, whereby water 
passes through the cell walls and enters the cells of the 
oyster and the mineral substance thereof is forced out 
into the external water. Larger volumes of water pass 
into the cells than accompany the particles of mineral 
matter to the outside of the cells and the result is a 
swelling of the oysters and consequent increase in the 
size and weight by the addition of pure water, but at 
the expense of the natural salt, mostly chloride of 
sodium or common salt, which the oyster contains." 

Thus does science confirm and explain the epicure's 
perception that oysters are denatured by being soaked 
in fresh water — deprived of the tang of the sea, which 
tang to any one who knows anything about the art of 
eating constitutes ninety-five per cent, of the value of 
an oyster. 

There are exceptions to my statement that small 
oysters are the best. Some epicures prefer the large, 
adult Lynnhavens to the small Blue Points; and the 
Lynnhavens certainly are among the finest in flavor. 
But men who do prefer the naturally large oysters, or 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 93 

oysters that have been legitimately fattened in salt 
water, ought to be the first to fiercely resent the float- 
ing which is done to deceive them as to the real size 
of the oysters they pay for, and gives them denatured 
oysters, bloated and sickened with sewage water. 

Three centuries ago Massachusetts boasted oysters a 
foot in length, and in Maine a shell has been found 
measuring three inches over a foot. We need not 
worry, however, at the decreased size of our bivalves; 
it makes them more tender — though, to be sure, also 
less nutritious. In any case, however, the nutritive 
value of an oyster is so insignificant as to be prac- 
tically negligible. How ludicrously small it is, is 
shown by Dr. Wiley. For one hundred pounds of 
shelled oysters, he says, only about ten pounds of meat 
are found. In ten pounds of the meat there is over 80 
per cent, of water; so that "the actual nourishment con- 
tained in 100 pounds of oysters is reduced to a little 
over one pound. 1 " 

Could anything more triumphantly demonstrate the 
comparative importance of Flavor over nutriment in 
this, the most delicious of all sea foods? 

Yet it is to this all-important Flavor that our dealers 
show such brutal indifference, not only in the various 
ways pointed out in the preceding pages but in other 
ways. For instance, oysters spoil even more rapidly 
than fish and should therefore be kept alive to the last 
possible moment before serving. Yet how lamentably 



94 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

seldom is this done ! It can be done not only in cities 
on the coast, but in those of the interior, it being possi- 
ble to keep oysters alive and in excellent state for con- 
sumption for a week or ten days or even longer. 

It would be unjust to the oystermen to accuse them 
of perpetrating all their crimes against shellfish from 
sheer greed for extra gain. Ignorance also comes into 
play. Only one opener in fifty seems to know that the 
best thing by far about an oyster is the liquid in its 
shell. Watch the other forty-nine and you will see 
them wantonly wasting this precious, fragrant liquid, 
and in many cases they will serve the oyster on the flat 
shell, so that you get no juice at all. Always ask for 
them on the deep shell and don't he afraid, after you 
have transferred the morsel to your mouth to drink 
the liquid from the shell. It may not look elegant, but 
elegance be hanged! 

Dealers who wish to get rich quick by creating an 
unprecedented demand for oysters with the real tang 
of the sea should bear all these things in mind and 
further prepare themselves by reading pages 158 to 
164 of Dr. Wiley's Foods and their Adulteration. 
Then let them remember that honesty is the only 
profitable policy. The public is not in a mood to be 
fooled and trifled with any longer. 

In the autumn of 1912 Dr. Wiley called attention 
(in "Good Housekeeping" for November) to the im- 
portant fact that under present conditions not only is 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 95 

it seldom safe to eat raw oysters, but that they are par- 
ticularly risky in two of the "R" months — September 
and October — because of the danger of pollution due 
to the crowding at the seashore, which is becoming 
greater and greater as the summers wear on, many of 
the resorts being near beds in which oysters thus be- 
come sewage-contaminated even before they are 
"floated" by dealers. 

In September, 1912, the Bureau of Chemistry pub- 
lished its Bulletin 156 on Sewage Polluted Oysters as a 
Cause of Typhoid and other G 'astro-Intestinal Disturb- 
ances, by George W. Stiles, Jr., Chief of the Bacteri- 
ological Laboratory. He reviews the literature on the 
subject, showing how in many cases epidemics of ty- 
phoid and other diseases were traced to the eating of 
raw shellfish, and then relates how, with a detective in- 
genuity worthy of a Sherlock Holmes or a Burns, seven- 
teen cases of typhoid and eighty-three cases of gastro- 
enteritis following a banquet held at Goshen, N. Y., 
in October, 1911, were traced directly to eating Rock- 
away oysters floated at Indian Creek, and twenty-six 
other cases, ten of them typhoid, were traced to the 
eating of Rockaways, some of which came from the 
same lot furnished for the Goshen banquet. 

The Rockaway oysters thus got a "black eye," but 
if perhaps the worst offenders, they are by no means 
the only ones. "All the oysters of New York Bay, 
Narragansett Bay, and the Potomac River, the waters 



96 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

near Norfolk, Va., and the mouth of the James River, 
the mouths of the Connecticut and Merrimac Rivers, 
and other industrial streams, and the continental border 
of Long Island Sound, are open to suspicion," says 
Dr. Wiley, and should not be eaten raw. More and 
more, too, will object to eating them cooked. Boiled 
filth does not appeal to the imagination. 

The plain and distressing truth is that our great shell 
fish business, the pride of Gastronomic America, will 
be ruined altogether unless the barbarous custom of 
discharging the sewage matter of cities and villages into 
rivers and the ocean is stopped. It seems incredible 
that we, with our incalculable wealth, should be so far 
behind Europeans, especially Germans, in this matter 
of keeping our sea food clean and edible. The disposal 
of sewage matter after German methods is the most 
important problem now before the American public, 
more important by far than tariff questions, warships, 
irrigation projects and Panama canals. 

Typhoid fever could be reduced to a minimum were 
the sewage disposed of scientifically as it is in some 
German and English cities. The startling assertion 
that in 1909 there were more cases of typhoid in the 
United States than of plague in India was made by 
Dr. Allan J. McLaughlin, of the United States Public 
Health Service at a meeting in New York, December 
5, 1912, of the Association of Life Insurance Presi- 
dents. The typhoid fever rate per 100,000 is, in Ber- 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 97 

lin, only 2.9; in London it is 3.3; in Vienna, 3.8. In 
Boston it is 1 1.3; in New York, 1 1.6; in Chicago, 13.7 ; 
in Philadelphia, 17.5; in Washington, 23.2; while in 
Milwaukee and Minneapolis it rises to 45.7 and 58.7 
respectively. The annual loss to the country from 
these fever cases is put at $100,000,000. 

"smoked" ham, bacon, and fish. 

Some Americans have an inexplicable prejudice — 
which, however, is fast disappearing — against fresh 
pork and against sausages, but bacon and ham are 
relished universally, and it is therefore of national im- 
portance that they should be made appetizing. But 
they fare as badly as our bivalves and our fowls. 
Time was when a crisp slice of bacon would give zest 
to a whole breakfast, but the bacon served now in 
nineteen cases out of twenty has no more flavor than 
sawdust; it is eaten without pleasure, and therefore 
burdens the stomach for hours. Virginia ham has 
maintained its supremacy and there are a few pack- 
ers of other hams and bacon who uphold a high 
standard; but most of them have succumbed to the 
temptation of curing their pork products with cheap 
preservatives which denature them, making them as 
flavorless as floating makes the oysters, and cold stor- 
age the poultry. 

Has the reader ever spent a summer in a farm-house 
and casually come into a corner of the woodshed where 




Where smoked hams were suspended from the rafters 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 99 

smoked hams were suspended from the rafters? If so, 
he will remember the appetizing fragrance which sud- 
denly made his mouth water and make him long for 
breakfast. Some persons think they do not like smoked 
meats; but they almost invariably do when they thus 
come across the real thing. 

Smoke is not only the best of all preservatives, it 
is also the most valuable of condiments, imparting to 
meats or fish a delicate aroma without altering their 
natural flavor. A famous Austrian physiologist, Pro- 
fessor Briicke, pointed out many years ago that smoked 
meats are more digestible than fresh meats; but he did 
not give the reason, which is that the delicate yet pene- 
trating Flavor added by the smoke creates an appetite 
and thus causes a flow of digestive juices to the stomach. 
The American consumer is now usually deprived of 
this healthful condiment and wholesome pleasure be- 
cause those who handle pork products have discovered 
that they can save much time, trouble, and money by 
soaking them, as just intimated, in cheap solutions of 
chemicals instead of smoking them in the old-fashioned 
way, carefully and slowly. 

Farmers are busy folk and therefore naturally eager 
to learn ways of lessening their labors. They conse- 
quently succumb readily on reading an alluring adver- 
tisement like the following, clipped from a paper pub- 
lished in a Western village : 



ioo FOOD AND FLAVOR 

"Smoke Your Meat With a Brush 

There's a new and better way of smoking meat. 
You accomplish in but a trifle of time all that you 
can by the tedious old fashioned process. Your meat 
will be hard and firm, it will be protected from all 
germs and insects and it will have a more delicate 
flavor than if smoked in the old way. Use 

Brown's Condensed Smoke 

It contains all the preservative elements of the smoke, 
without the rank, disagreeable elements. You simply 
apply it with a brush or sponge, giving the meat one or 
two coats, and the smoking is done. Price 75c" 

In England, also, long famed for its deliciously 
flavored smoked hams and bacon, the farmers and 
packers have been approached by the tempter. "A 
case in point," says the "Lancet" of February 5, 1910, 
"is seen in a rapid method of making hams, bacon, and 
certain fishes appear to be smoked by applying to 
them a fluid called 'smoke essence.' " 

Is it straight dealing, it asks, to call an article painted 
over with smoke essence "smoked"? "We had oc- 
casion recently," this leading medical journal con- 
tinues, "to examine a specimen of smoke essence in 
the laboratory, and the results of the analysis were in- 
teresting. We found it to consist chiefly of creosote, 
analine dye, and a salt of iron." Even if such a mix- 
ture is harmless "that fact does not justify leading a 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 101 

consumer to suppose that a bloater, a tongue, a rasher 
of bacon or ham, treated by this simple process, had 
been adequately cured by the operation well known as 
'smoking.' There can be no question at all that the 
color is added to complete the disguise, and we feel 
bound to admire the ingenuity of the inventor of a 
mixture who puts into it a salt of iron which is cal- 
culated to give a side of bacon an appearance of 
natural rustiness." 

In conclusion, the "Lancet" expresses its regret that 
such matters as these affecting the purity of the food 
supply were not "strongly dealt with" when the De- 
partmental Committee on Food Preservatives and 
Coloring Matters issued its recommendations nearly a 
decade previously. 

It is passing strange how patiently the average Eng- 
lishman, and still more the average American, allows 
himself to be fooled by food manipulators whose chief 
aim is to save time, trouble, and expense. 

The familiar definition of genius as "a capacity for 
taking pains" is incorrect, but such a capacity is cer- 
tainly necessary for the production of the best foods, 
including bacon and ham. We Americans, speaking 
collectively, lack it and that is one of the main rea- 
sons why we must be branded as an ungastronomic 
nation. 

A striking illustration of the importance the Bo- 
hemians, for instance, attach to such matters is found 



102 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

in the village of Wallern, where a cooperative society 
has been formed for the sole purpose of getting meats 
smoked in the best possible manner, with beech 
wood. 

The point I wish to call special attention to is that 
the pork products in this model house are smoked, ac- 
cording to the size of the pieces, for a period of two 
to three months. 

In a recent American book on pigs these directions 
are given: "If the hams are to be smoked they should 
be hung in the smoke stoves at least three days." 

Three days ! In Germany and Austria, where the 
world-famed Westphalian and Prager hams are cured, 
six weeks is the minimum time for a good article. The 
maximum, for the highest-priced hams, is three months. 

We are now in a position to understand why so 
many Americans imagine they do not like smoked 
meats. They have in mind either such meats as have 
been chemically "smoked," miles away from any 
smoke house or stove, or such as have been actually 
smoked, but too briefly, or in too strong smoke. 

Dealers have slyly taken advantage of the naturally 
growing aversion to "smoked" meats. "Slightly 
Smoked" is a label one often sees now, and ere long, 
if not checked they will have the audacity to say to 
a housewife asking for smoked ham or fish or bacon 
that they have "none in stock," there being "so little 
demand for it." 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 103 

That is the way many of the best things are crowded 
out of the market. 

In conclusion, let me whisper in the reader's ear the 
secret why those who handle pork products and fish are 
so eager to get rid of the smoke house that during the 
process of smoking the ham and bacon may lose up to 
twenty per cent, of its weight. 

"But why does the dealer not charge more, to make 
up for loss of weight?" He does, dear Madam. He 
charges more every year and saves the full weight, too, 
by avoiding the smoke house. The joke is on you. 
He will do this as long as you meekly tolerate it. He 
will tell you with a look of injured innocence that you 
are "the first one to complain" — and perhaps you are, 
though merely one of many thousands who have been 
fooled. 

As I have said, there are exceptions. A few firms 
are selling real smoked ham and bacon, and they are 
coining money. Others will perhaps find out ere long 
that it pays better to please the public than to fool it. 

At present, the outlook seems hopeless. Some years 
ago, when there were still a few dealers left who did 
not try to get rich quick at the expense of your stomach 
and health, I used to lunch often on smoked fish. But 
in the year 1912 you could not — at least I could not — 
get a genuine smoked fish for love or money. One 
day in December, I walked into a delicatessen store in 
which I saw through the window a plateful of white- 



104 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

fish, a variety which is particularly good smoked. 
They were choice specimens, but after a sniff at them 
I beat a retreat with, I presume, a disgusted expression. 
"What's the matter with those fish?" asked the dealer. 
"They are a first-class article." "Fine fish," I re- 
torted, "but they are not smoked." "They may not be 
smoked enough . . ." "They are not smoked at 
all," I interrupted, "they are chemically preserved and 
dyed to save weight." "You seem to know more about 
it than I do," he said. "I certainly do," I answered: 
"If they were smoked I would take a dozen of them." 

Fancy the situation — to be unable, in the second 
largest city of the world, to get smoked fish! I have 
tried dozens of places, always with the same result. 
If others refused to buy the denatured stuff offered, 
smoked fish would soon be in the market again. 

The best foreign methods of smoking meats are de- 
scribed in No. 3655 of the Daily Consular and Trade 
Reports (Washington, December 8, 1909). Fortunes 
are in store for all American packers who will follow 
those methods and advertise honestly: 

" We give our pigs clean food, feeding a fine flavor 
into our hams and bacon; we do not destroy this flavor 
with chemical preservatives but intensify its appetizing 
qualities by the use of beechwood smoke." 

Where beech-wood or hickory, oak, or maple are not 
available, corn cobs make a cheap and satisfactory sub- 
stitute. 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 105 



FLAVOR IN BUTTER. 



On every table in the land, except that of the very 
poor, there is one article which appears two or three 
times a day all the year round, and that article is butter. 
More than $300,000,000 worth of it is consumed 
every year in the United States. One would therefore 
suppose that the public would insist with all its might 
and main on having its butter good. It does no such 
thing, but meekly accepts the indifferent and often vile 
stuff offered by dealers — an unpalatable lubricator 
which I would no more think of eating than I would 
axle grease. 

A few years ago Miss Alice Lakey, chairman of the 
food investigating committee of the National Consum- 
ers' League, said that "ninety-five per cent, of all sam- 
ples of butter submitted were adulterated. We are 
eating practically no pure butter." 

While there is evidence to show that butter was 
made four thousand years ago, it seems to have taken 
some nations a long time to "catch up with the proces- 
sion." We are a long way ahead, on the whole, of the 
Spaniards, who, as late as the seventeenth century, kept 
butter in medicine shops "for external use only" 
(doubtless there were good reasons!) and who to this 
day hardly know what edible butter is; or of the Irish 
of that same century who are spoken of by James 
Houghton as rotting their table butter by burying it in 



106 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

bogs. But we are lamentably behind some of the 
European nations, notably the French, Germans, 
Austrians, and Swiss, in the making and the apprecia- 
tion of first-class butter. 

In some of our leading restaurants and hotels, as 
well as in expensive clubs and the residences of wealthy 
families, one may come across such butter; but one 
is not sure of getting the real thing even after paying 
the highest price. I seldom eat it at home — there are 
too many disappointments — and when I travel in the 
United States I rarely have the courage to try it. 
In rural summer resorts we have found that the only 
way to get edible butter is to make it ourselves. 

As regards Europe, on the contrary, I can repeat 
what I have said about poultry: that during a five 
months' trip in 1912 I did not once have butter placed 
before me which I could not eat with pleasure. 

The unwillingness of Americans to take pains in the 
preparation of foods to which I have referred as one 
of the main indications of our being an ungastronomic 
nation is strikingly illustrated in the department of 
butter-making, wherein it is the chief cause of our in- 
feriority. 

Our Government has done its best to enlighten the 
butter-makers. In 1904 the Department of Agricul- 
ture published, for free distribution, Farmers' Bulletin 
No. 241 : "Butter-making on the Farm," by Edwin H. 
Webster, Chief of Dairy Division, Bureau of Animal 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 107 

Industry; and, in 1905, Circular No. 56 of the same 
Bureau: "Facts Concerning the History, Commerce 
and Manufacture of Butter," by Harry Hayward, 
assistant chief. These pamphlets contain in concise 
form invaluable information which, if generally util- 
ized, would revolutionize the butter business. 

Mr. Webster refers to "the great amount of poor 
butter made on the farm," and Mr. Hayward also con- 
fesses that "a very small percentage of all dairy butter 
made is of really high grade." 

When one reads of all the diverse precautions that 
must be taken to ensure a good article, and bears in 
mind the characteristically American unwillingness to 
take pains with the things that are put into our 
stomachs, one wonders not that our butter is so inferior. 

A few of the hundred-and-one precautions necessary 
to secure a first-class article may be briefly mentioned. 
The cow must be kept carefully cleaned, particularly 
the udder, and so must the hands of the milker, and the 
pail which holds the milk. "The habit of some milk- 
ers of wetting their hands with milk just as they begin 
is a filthy practice and the cause of much bad milk and 
poor butter." There must be no hidden, inaccessible 
places in the pails, nor must rusty tinware be used, be- 
cause it imparts a metallic flavor to the milk. Some 
of the so-called washing powders are very objection- 
able. The walls of the barn must be whitewashed, and 
the ventilation such that the air is changed every few 



108 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

minutes. The pails must be rinsed first with cold, then 
with boiling water. The milk must be removed as 
soon as possible from the barn, where it readily absorbs 
dust or bad odors from the air, and then stored in a 
cold place, far away from decaying vegetables or fruits 
or other things, the odors of which it might absorb. 
The sun should pervade the cold storage room but not 
look on the milk. If possible, the cream should be 
collected by means of a separator, for the proper 
handling of which there are a number of rules, the 
neglect of any one of which will spoil the butter. It 
is absolutely necessary to cool the cream thoroughly, 
immediately after separating, and to avoid mixing of 
cold with warm cream. Then there are a number of 
directions concerning churning; working the butter to 
get out the milk and water; packing; marketing; feed- 
ing the cows, and so on, none of which can be disre- 
garded with impunity. 

This complexity of the art of butter-making may 
help to explain the situation in America, but does not 
excuse it, for in the gastronomic countries of Europe 
people are not too lazy, ignorant, or indifferent to turn 
out a first-class article every day in the year. 

What I wish to call particular attention to is that all 
these precautions necessary for the making of first- 
class butter relate to its Flavor. Persons buying butter 
for any other purpose than the enjoyment of its Flavor 
are extremely foolish, for they can get the same amount 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 109 

of fat and general nourishment very much cheaper in a 
hundred other ways. 

It is for the sake of securing an agreeable aroma or 
Flavor that all the rules just enumerated, and two-score 
more, must be observed. If this is not done — if only 
one or two of them are neglected — there are developed 
in the milk, or the cream, or the churned butter, bac- 
teria of a very disagreeable kind, which will convert 
butter that might have been of the highest grade into a 
second, third, or fourth grade article, or one quite unfit 
for human consumption, because of excessively rancid, 
fishy, smoky, tallowy, leeky, soapy, cheesy, or other fla- 
vors. The art of butter-making consists in eliminating 
all disagreeable flavors and fostering the agreeable ones. 

Renovated or process butter is made of butter in 
which, on account of careless manufacture or storing, 
the disagreeable bacteria have so got the upper hand of 
the agreeable ones that even those persons who, because 
of a slender purse or an imperfectly developed sense 
of smell, are contented with fourth-grade butter, refuse 
to buy it. This stuff (often sold, horribile dictu, as 
"cooking butter") is subjected to a process of purifica- 
tion, which makes it a wholesome and nutritious article 
of diet. Yet it is sold at a much lower price, for the 
reason that it is inferior in Flavor to good butter. 

The long and fierce fight between the butter-makers 
and the manufacturers of oleomargarine is also in the 
final analysis, a question of Flavor, 



no FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Oleomargarine is a mixture of vegetable and ani- 
mal fats, diversely mixed. This mixture is churned 
with milk to impart a butter Flavor; or there is added 
to it more or less butter, in which case it is known com- 
mercially as butterine, although legally it is classified 
as oleomargarine. 

If made honestly, of clean material, and unadulter- 
ated with borated Chinese egg-yolks, or with preserva- 
tives, oleomargarine is a perfectly unobjectionable and 
wholesome food. The trouble is that, as Dr. Wiley 
has pointed out (191 1), "there has been a constant dis- 
position on the part of dishonest manufacturers and 
dealers, since the time when oleomargarine became a 
commercial commodity, to sell it as butter. Although 
the penalties of National and State laws are very se- 
vere in this respect the practice is continued. The op- 
portunity for gain is so great that the cupidity of the 
manufacturer overcomes his fear of punishment and 
disgrace." 

There has been much outcry because of the special 
tax on oleomargarine and the severe laws against selling 
it as butter. As a matter of fact these laws should be 
even more severe and much more rigidly enforced. 
The practice of selling it as butter not only defrauds the 
consumer but it tends to drive real butter out of the 
market, since such butter cannot be produced at nearly 
so low a cost as margarine, especially if made with the 
care and expenditure of time necessary for the produc- 



OUR DENATURED FOODS in 

tion of first-class butter. The best butter costs five or 
six times as much as the best margarine. It is needless 
to say that in the compounding of "butterine" the best 
butter is not likely to be used. 

By mixing milk or butter with his fats, the manu- 
facturer of margarine confesses that his own product 
lacks the one thing which gives butter its advantage, 
for table use, over a dozen other fats that might be 
chosen — its appetizing Flavor, which makes it digesti- 
ble and enables us to eat it with relish every day in 
the year. It is owing to this superiority that pure 
butter is entitled to legal protection against unfair 
competition. 

It might be argued that the American farmer, whose 
butter is, as we have seen, usually of a low grade, does 
not deserve the protection the Government gives him 
against the underselling of the margarine maker, be- 
cause good oleomargarine is preferable to bad butter. 
Such protection is, however, due to the associated sys- 
tem of manufacture known as creameries. The cream- 
ery, which in 1900 had already usurped one-half the 
butter business in the country, "has done much," as 
Mr. Hayward remarks, "to improve the quality of 
American butter, and if all butter came direct from 
creameries there would be no such quantities sold by 
producers at prices which are often actually below 
the cost of production, as is the case at the present 
time." 



112 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

SWEET BUTTER VERSUS SALT. 

There are now a number of model creameries in the 
United States turning out butter which would probably- 
equal the best European were it not habitually spoiled 
by the injudicious use of a "starter" to turn the cream 
quite sour, and by the addition of salt. The subtle and 
much disputed question of sour cream versus sweet 
will be discussed in the chapter on French Supremacy. 
That of "salt or no salt" must be disposed of now. 

The assertion frequently made that unsalted butter 
tastes insipid to most users is not confirmed by my 
own experience. No doubt the subtle aroma of sweet 
butter escapes many who are partially anosmic (a 
frequent defect analogous to color-blindness), or who 
have neglected to train their sense of smell, or who 
have deadened their olfactory nerve by excessive smok- 
ing or drinking of strong liquors, so that they cannot 
appreciate the delicate aroma of European butter. But 
I have come across many Americans at home and 
abroad who, given a fair chance, instantly and em- 
phatically preferred the unsalted butter. 

Once I made a special experiment at a rural boarding 
house in Maine. Of a dozen persons at the table only 
one liked salt butter better; two had no decided prefer- 
ence, while the other nine voted, after a fair trial and 
comparison, for sweet butter first, last, and all the 
time. 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 113 

The only trouble was that much more was consumed 
of the sweet than had been eaten of the salt; which 
shows the folly of those dealers who think they are 
smart in selling pounds of salt at the price of butter, 
whereas in truth they would sell twice as much butter 
if they left it sweet, because that kind is so much more 
palatable and tempting. Boarding house keepers will 
always order salt butter. 

Undoubtedly the vast majority of Americans at 
present prefer, or think they prefer, salted butter. To 
convince them that this preference simply proves that 
their gastronomic education has been neglected, let me 
add a few significant details. 

Dr. Wiley, in whose taste, judgment and knowl- 
edge we all have so much faith says that "the best 
grade of butter is that which receives no treatment 
other than the washing and working process to which 
attention has been called. This kind of butter is 
known as natural or unsalted or uncolored butter, that 
is, a fresh, sweet product of an agreeable aroma, palata- 
ble, of fine texture and grain, and is the best product 
of its kind for human consumption. It also brings 
the highest price on the market." 

Until a few years ago it was almost impossible, even 
in New York City, to get unsalted butter. To-day it 
is usually served in the most expensive hotels and 
restaurants, some of the wealthy folk use it at home, 
and the general customer has a chance to buy it in a 



H4 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

few places, at fancy prices. It is seldom as good as 
the same product in the humblest inn of Continental 
Europe, but it is improving from year to year. 

In connection with this fact it is interesting to read 
the words of Chief Hayward, in the Government pub- 
lication already referred to. 

"What is known as the highest class trade demands 
a much lighter salted butter than is demanded for the 
lower grades, furthermore^ there is an increasing 
tendency on the part of the best trade to ash for a 
butter containing less and less salt. Butter which has 
a clean^ pure flavor needs little salt; that which is off- 
flavor or tainted in any way is improved by being 
strongly salted." 

In other words, the worse the butter, the more salt 
it needs, and the better the butter the less salt it 
needs. From this it follows logically that the best 
butter needs no salt at all. 

The notion that salt "brings out" the Flavor is 
ridiculous; it spoils it. In the gastronomic countries 
of Europe the consumer would no more allow salt to 
be put into the butter he eats than into the cream 
he puts in his coffee, or the ice-cream he takes for his 
dessert. 

There is absolutely no excuse for continuing the 
barbarous practice of denaturing American butter by 
the addition of salt. It does not even help to make 
it keep. On this point Dr. Wiley remarks: "It is a 



OUR DENATURED FOODS 115 

common supposition that salt in butter is a preserva- 
tive. This is true when used in large quantities, that 
is, in quantities which render the butter somewhat un- 
palatable. The very small quantity of salt used purely 
for condimental purposes cannot be regarded as aiding 
in any material way the preservation of the product." 

There is also a comic side to the question and the 
joke is on the butter-maker and dealer. I have already 
pointed out that we are tempted to eat much more of 
the sweet butter than of the salt. There is another 
weighty reason why the makers would profit by leaving 
out the salt. Dr. Wiley observes that "there is a 
tendency on the part of the greedy manufacturer to 
add excessive quantities of salt because it is very much 
cheaper than the butter itself and thus he hopes to add 
to the profit of the industry. On the contrary this 
practice usually results in loss, since such highly salted 
butter naturally brings the lowest price." 

The funniest part of the story remains to be told. 
By throwing in handfuls of salt the maker not only 
lowers the market price of his butter but also decreases 
its weight! Read Assistant Chief Hayward's ex- 
planation of this seeming paradox: 

"Butter will usually weigh less after the salt has been 
added and the butter worked than before. This is due 
to the fact, already mentioned, that salt unites, or col- 
lects, the small drops of moisture into drops so large 
that they can be separated from the butter, and, as the 



n6 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

total weight of the water or brine thus separated ex- 
ceeds the weight of salt added, the butter consequently 
loses weight by reason of salting." 

If, in spite of all this, the butter-maker and dealer 
persist in foisting strongly salted butter on you, beware ! 
It can only be because, as Chief Hayward has pointed 
out, "that which is "off flavor' or tainted in any way, 
is improved by being strongly salted." Do you wish 
to habitually eat bad butter thus " improved" *? Can 
it be possible that you do not resent being the dupe of 
the astute butter men 1 ? 



<Vufe 




m--n 



IV 



THE SCIENCE OF SAVORY COOKING 




DESIRABLE RAW FOODS. 

OBODY wants a boiled or fried orange 
or grapefruit for breakfast. Other 
fruits, such as apples, pears, peaches, 
plums, cherries, grapes, and diverse 
berries are often cooked, in many ways; 
but when ripe, sound and of good stock, they usually 
"taste" better raw than cooked. We do not boil our 
melons, nuts, or radishes, nor, as a rule, our celery and 
green-salad leaves of various kinds, or our cucumbers. 
Tomatoes make an excellent stew, but they are better 
still sliced raw, with vinegar and oil, and best of all 
eaten out of hand right off the plant. 

These things nearly everybody knows. Many, how- 
ever, are not aware that the best thing about a cabbage 

is the core, eaten raw, and that carrots, turnips, and 

117 



n8 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

particularly peas, when young and tender, are far better 
raw than cooked. Raw carrots taste a little like celery. 
One of my chief delights when on a farm is to stroll 
about the garden and orchard, sampling the various 
vegetables, berries, and fruits just before breakfast. 

A tolerable case might thus be made out for those 
faddists who preach the gospel of raw food. Like all 
fads, it is nevertheless foolish. Were we to accept it, 
we might still eat sun-dried meat, or ham, sausages, 
and fish thoroughly smoked, but we would hardly care 
to eat raw bacon, or veal, or mutton, or poultry, or 
beef (though a "beefsteak a la Tartare" is edible when 
buried under diverse "trimmings" from the delicatessen 
store). I should like to see a faddist eat a raw potato 
or beet, or a plateful of raw pumpkin, squash, or beans ! 

Were we to live on raw foods altogether, we might 
survive to tell the tale, but we should have to give up 
that infinite variety which is the chief spice of our diet. 
At the same time one of the great arts of civilization 
would vanish from the earth — an art which does as 
much to distinguish us from animals as the fine arts 
do — more so, in fact, for birds sing and beavers build 
houses, but no bird or other animal ever cooks its food. 

FLAVOR AS THE GUIDING PRINCIPLE. 

"Cookery is an art which almost more than any 
other has civilized mankind," as President E. B. Tylor 




Before breakfast in the garden 



120 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

of the British Anthropological Association has truly 
said. 

Nor is it only an art; it is also a science — or rather, 
it is becoming a science. From time immemorial cooks 
have, by instinct or accident, often done the right thing; 
but in the absence of a guiding principle, scientifically 
formulated, they have much more frequently made a 
mess of it. 

There are four reasons for cooking food : to sterilize 
it; to make it more nutritious; to make it more easily 
digestible; and to improve or vary its Flavor. 

Cooking destroys the germs of typhoid and other 
diseases which may lurk in food products, and it also 
retards the general decomposition which may result in 
ptomaine poisoning. 

It has long been believed that raw or semi-raw meat 
is more nutritious than meat which has been moder- 
ately cooked; but this is not true. It is true, on the 
other hand, that in the ordinary methods of cooking 
there is often a considerable loss of nutriment. The 
United States Department of Agriculture has had a 
number of experiments made to place this question on 
a scientific basis. 1 Much remains to be done, but in 
the end it will doubtless be found that there is no ap- 
preciable loss if French methods are followed. 

1 See Bulletins Nos. 34, 141, 162, 193. A convenient summary of the 
results reached, up to 191 1, may be found in J. Alan Murray's "The 
Economy of Food," New York: D, Appleton & Co. 



SAVORY COOKING 121 

That cooking makes most foods more digestible it is 
needless to prove. Even fruits which taste better raw, 
digest more readily when cooked. A great many per- 
sons who cannot, for instance, eat apples, find them not 
only agreeable but easily assimilated and most bene- 
ficial to health when stewed or baked. Cereals (par- 
ticularly oatmeal) and many vegetables and meats 
need cooking — sometimes hours of it to make them 
easy to masticate and digest. 

The main object of cooking, however, is to preserve 
and develop the countless savors latent in good raw 
material, to combine them or to add others where the 
material is deficient in natural Flavor. 

This is the guiding principle to the science of cook- 
ery. Strange to say, there are cook books in which the 
word Flavor is not to be found ! The recipes given in 
such books may be correct, but to follow them me- 
chanically is like playing the notes of a piano piece 
without knowing anything about expression marks. 
Flavor is the soul of food as expression is the soul of 
music. 

Born cooks know this instinctively and act on it. 
But cooks can also be made. Tremendous improve- 
ment could be effected in our kitchens in a short time 
by attending to the elements of the Science of Savory 
Cooking, long since discovered, but usually ignored. 

Much has been written about the wastefulness in our 
households. A French family, we have been told a 



122 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

thousand times, could live on what is thrown away in 
an American kitchen. True; but as long as we enjoy 
our present national prosperity this waste is a far less 
deplorable matter than the criminal way in which igno- 
rant or careless persons habitually denature our best 
food materials by allowing the healthful Flavors to 
escape during the process of cooking. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOUP MAKING AND EATING. 

In each of the processes of cooking, such as boiling, 
roasting, frying, stewing, steaming, baking, it is neces- 
sary to observe certain elementary rules which can 
easily be taught. 

Boiling. In boiling meat, everything depends on 
whether the object is to keep the juices within the meat 
or to get them out ; in other words, whether the meat is 
intended to be eaten, or simply used for the purpose of 
making a rich, flavorful bouillon or soup. If the meat 
is to be eaten, it is plunged at once into boiling water, 
which coagulates the protein on the outside and pre- 
vents the loss of the juices. The bigger the chunk, the 
better. 

If the meat is not to be eaten, it is put into a pot of 
cold water and the temperature is raised gradually. In 
this case the richest broth is obtained if the meat is 
cut up into small pieces and cooked a long time. 

It is almost universally believed that "soup meat" 
(usually beef) boiled in this way has lost most of its 



SAVORY COOKING 123 

nutritive qualities and that these have gone into the 
soup. In reality, it is all a matter of Flavor. We pre- 
fer the soup to the meat boiled in it, merely because 
the Flavor of the meat has been transferred to the soup. 
The nutritive matter remains in the meat; the soup 
stock has very little of it — from one to five per cent, 
only. It is evident, therefore, as Dr. Wiley points 
out, that "the soup stock is valuable as a condiment 
and flavoring and not as a food." 

The same is true of beef extract, which is simply a 
concentrated soup stock — thirty-four pounds of beef 
boiled down into one pound. 

Here we have the whole philosophy of soup making 
and soup eating, reduced to the simplest terms. Soup 
contains the essence of meat Flavor, and we eat it at 
the beginning of a meal because this Flavor stimulates 
the appetite, which in turn causes the digestive juices 
to flow freely. The richer the soup is in Flavor, the 
more it stimulates the appetite. The beef extracts sold 
in little jars are, if made by reputable firms, among the 
most valuable appetizers — invaluable, in fact, in a 
country in which the science of making savory soup is 
so little understood or practised as it is in the United 
States. 

The makers of meat extracts have laid themselves 
open to censure by making extravagant claims as to 
the nutritive properties of these extracts, instead of 
dwelling principally on their importance as flavorful 



124 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

appetizers. This, to be sure, they could hardly have 
been expected to do until the all-importance of Flavor 
in Food had been impressed on the public in a special 
monograph. 

WHEREIN LIES THE VALUE OF VEGETABLES*? 

Except for the making of soup stock, and of ex- 
tracts and beef tea, boiling of meats is not much in 
vogue in America. Vegetables, on the other hand, 
are usualty boiled — and thereby hangs a melancholy 
tale. 

Boiled they should be, but not in the careless, un- 
scientific way generally practised in America and Eng- 
land, where they usually are served at table entirely 
denatured, that is, deprived of their Flavors. 

Villainous and idiotic are the only adjectives that 
adequately describe this method of cooking vegetables, 
for their utility as food lies chiefly in these Flavors, the 
nutritive value of green vegetables being small. 

How small it is may be seen by the analysis given in 
Dr. Wiley's "Foods and their Adulteration," Part VI, 
where he says, for example: "There is very little nour- 
ishment obtained in eating a turnip which perhaps is 
95 per cent, water, — yet its palatability, its condi- 
mental character, and its general salutary effect upon 
digestion is such as to make it worth while to pay even 
a high price in proportion to its nutriment." 

If the reader wants more evidence on this point he 



SAVORY COOKING 125 

may find it in Sir Henry Thompson's valuable book, 
Food and Feeding. Speaking of "the entire cabbage 
tribe in great variety; lettuces, endives, and cresses; 
spinach, sea-kale, asparagus, celery, onions, artichokes, 
and tomato," he remarks that all these are "valuable 
not so much for nutritive property, which is not con- 
siderable, as for admixture with other food chiefly on 
account of salts which they contain, and for their 
appetizing aroma and Flavor." 

Therefore, to boil green vegetables without the slight- 
est attempt to preserve or develop their natural Flavors, 
as is almost universally done in our country, is, I re- 
peat, villainous and idiotic. 

Americans undoubtedly eat too much meat. Preach- 
ing about the injuriousness of this excess may do some 
good, but a much more effective way would be to cook 
vegetables more temptingly. 

If peas and string beans are succulent and fresh, they 
are delicious when simply boiled in salted water. In 
cities they seldom are quite fresh, and, as a rule, it is 
well to add soup stock or butter to develop the Flavor. 
In any case, it is of importance that the water should 
be already boiling when the vegetables are put in. If 
this is not the case, there is a loss of valuable salts and 
Flavors. Some loss there must always be; that is, 
the water always absorbs some of these juices and 
Flavors; but note the difference. French cooks pre- 
serve this vegetable stock, as they do the meat stock, 



126 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

for diverse combinations. Our cooks pour it down the 
sink. 

It is fortunate that the United States Government 
has undertaken to establish the principles of savory 
cooking by scientific methods, which will lead to more 
satisfaction and generally helpful results than the em- 
pirical, haphazard methods hitherto followed by cooks. 

An interesting glimpse into the kitchen laboratories 
of our Government experts is given by Murray in his 
"Economy of Food." 

"It is obvious," he says, "that the loss of nutrients 
will be increased by cutting the vegetables into small 
pieces, and by soaking them in cold water before cook- 
ing. In the case of potatoes, turnips, and similar 
products, the loss might be greatly diminished by cook- 
ing them whole with the skins on, but as a rule this 
method is not practicable. 

"These conclusions are confirmed by the experiments 
of Snyder, 1 Frisby, and Bryant. They found that when 
potatoes were peeled, cut into pieces in the usual way, 
and soaked in cold water before boiling about half the 
total nitrogen — including about a quarter of the true al- 
buminoids — was lost. When put into cold water and 
cooked at once, only about a sixth of the total nitrogen 
— including a twelfth part of the true albuminoids — 
was lost. When the potatoes were put, at once, into 
boiling water, the loss was only about half the amount 

1 Bulletin 43, U. S. Dept. of Agr. 



SAVORY COOKING 127 

recorded in the last case; but, for some reason, this 
method is not suitable for some kinds of potatoes, as 
they 'go to smash' if so treated. The loss from po- 
tatoes boiled in their skins was quite inconsiderable, 
being less than one per cent, of the total nitrogen. 

"In boiling carrots which had been scraped and cut 
into pieces, the amount of the loss was found to de- 
pend almost entirely upon the size of the pieces. 
Small pieces lost about 40 per cent, of the total 
nitrogen and 26 per cent, of the sugar. With large 
pieces, the loss of nitrogen was about 20 per cent, and 
of sugar, 15 per cent." 

A number of useful hints for the practical cook are 
supplied by these scientific experiments. 

It is needless to say that in potatoes and beets, and in 
dried vegetables, like beans, corn, and peas, the propor- 
tion of nutriment is greater than in the succulent 
greens. In the cooking of dried vegetables the preser- 
vation and development of Flavors is also of great im- 
portance, with a view especially to digestibility. Un- 
like the green, the dried vegetables should be cooked by 
putting them into cold water; and prolonged cooking 
is necessary in order to soften and otherwise prepare 
them for the alimentary canal. 

Our benevolent Government a few years ago engaged 
one of the country's chief cooking experts, Maria Par- 
loa, to write a brief treatise on the Preparation of 
Vegetables for the Table for free distribution by the De- 



128 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

partment of Agriculture as Farmers' Bulletin N0.256. 
Like all these documents, it is excellent; in less than 
fifty pages it explains the best ways of cooking potatoes, 
beans, peas, carrots, asparagus and two-score more of 
the products of the garden; and these pages are fol- 
lowed by others on vegetable soups, seasoning and 
sauces for vegetables, and salads and salad dress- 
ings. 

Every cook, urban as well as rural, should have a 
copy of this pamphlet and mark with a red pencil the 
more important directions. If every cook in the 
country knew and practised only the following direc- 
tions given in this useful document, what a transforma- 
tion there would be in our dining-rooms ! 

"All green vegetables, roots, and tubers should be 
crisp and firm when put on to cook. If for any reason 
a vegetable has lost its firmness and crispness, it should 
be soaked in very cold water until it becomes plump 
and crisp. With new vegetables this will be only a 
matter of minutes, while old roots and tubers often re- 
quire many hours." 

"All vegetables should be thoroughly cooked, but 
the cooking should stop while the vegetable is still 
firm." "Over-cooked vegetables are inferior in flavor 
and often indigestible." "Badly cooked, water-soaked 
vegetables very generally cause digestive disturbances, 
which are often serious." Cabbage "is apt to be in- 
digestible and cause flatulence when it is improperly 



SAVORY COOKING 129 

cooked. On the other hand, it can be cooked so that 
it will be delicate and digestible." 

Steaming is one of the best ways of cooking vegeta- 
bles. It is largely practised in France and Germany, 
but neglected in England as it is in America. Po- 
tatoes have more of their natural Flavor when steamed 
than when cooked any other way. An English writer 
says on this point: "Steaming has the double advantage 
of conserving the Flavor and making the food more di- 
gestible. Its only drawback is that it takes more 
time, and this is probably the reason why it has some- 
what fallen into disfavor in England." 

BROILING, ROASTING, BAKING, FRYING. 

As this volume is not intended to be a practical cook- 
book, no attempt is made to give rules for all the 
various processes of cooking food; nor is it necessary, 
for nearly every family owns a cook-book giving the 
required directions. What I wish to emphasize is that 
in all these processes the rules given by the best chefs 
refer directly or indirectly to the preservation and de- 
velopment of the food Flavors. A few brief para- 
graphs will suffice to prove this point. 

Broiling. As one expert puts it: "The ideal to 
be reached in broiling steak is to sear the surface very 
quickly, so that the juices which contain the greater 
part of the flavoring of the meat shall be kept in, and 
then to allow the heat to penetrate to the inside until 



130 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

the whole mass is cooked to the taste of the family. To 
pass the point where the meat ceases to be puffy and 
juicy and becomes flat and hard is very undesirable, 
as the 'palat ability is then lost. Exactly the same ideal 
should be kept in mind in broiling chopped meat. If 
this were always done, hard, compact, tasteless balls or 
cakes of meat would be served less often." 

The three words I have italicized show that in this 
case, as in all others, my contention is borne out that 
Flavor is the guiding principle in all scientific cook- 
ing. 

The use of the gridiron for a broil, or "grill," as the 
English call it (after the French griller), also imparts 
to the meat a slightly burnt taste relished by epicures. 

Roasting. Why is our roast beef usually so insipid 
and unappetizing? 

Sometimes the inferior quality of the meat is to 
blame, but more frequently our disappointment is due 
to the cook's indolence or the substitution of baking for 
roasting. 

Real roasting is like broiling in so far as it requires 
exposure of the meat to an open fire. It differs from 
broiling in that it also calls for frequent basting, that 
is, taking up with a spoon the fat which flows from the 
meat and pouring it over the surface, thus aiding the 
initial searing in keeping in the juices, on which the 
Flavor depends. 

Ordinary cooks are too lazy to baste and therefore 



SAVORY COOKING 131 

this precious juice escapes into the pan, where it is in 
turn spoiled by a deluge of water and an uncooked mass 
of flour, the resulting liquid being a sorry substitute for 
real, savory gravy. 

In place of roast meat most families now have to 
put up with baked meat. Baking in an open pan in 
a modern range results in the tainting of the meat with 
the disagreeable flavor of charred fat spattered by the 
cooking process against the top and the sides of the 
oven. The oven being unventilated, and not easily 
washed, the result is a permanent "oven taste" in the 
roast beef, mutton, veal, pork, or chicken, which is 
almost as exasperating to a discerning diner as the 
taint of cold-storage poultry. 

This objectionable oven taste can be eliminated by 
using a double roasting pan, which also has, to a cer- 
tain extent, the advantage of being self -basting. A 
conscientious cook, who knows the value of Flavor 
and of real gravy, will nevertheless look after the bast- 
ing personally. 

The value of gravy is far too little understood. 
Nothing is more appetizing in association with a good 
plain roast than the gravy made from its fat and some 
of its juices. In starting a roast it is of prime im- 
portance to expose the meat at once to a very high tem- 
perature so as to sear the surface and (as already 
stated) keep the juice in the meat. But before the 
searing process is completed, enough of the juice usually 



132 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

escapes to make, in combination with the fat which 
continues to ooze out, a delicious gravy. 

The French do not add flour to gravy ; if it is added, 
it should at least be used sparingly, and cooked five 
to eight minutes in the gravy. 

Frying. Give a dog a bad name, etc. ! Frying 
has been denounced as an invention of the devil, 
a source of countless digestive disorders. As ordi- 
narily practised it fully deserves its evil repute. From 
a dietetic as well as a gastronomic point of view nothing 
could be more objectionable than the fried steaks, ba- 
con, potatoes, and diverse deadly fritters daily placed 
on hundreds of thousands of American tables. But fry- 
ing on rational principles is an entirely wholesome and 
most desirable branch of the science of savory cooking. 

Success or failure in this branch is chiefly a matter 
of temperature. At the moment the meat, fish, or 
vegetable is put into the fat, this must be sufficiently 
hot to coagulate the surface so that (as in the processes 
of roasting or broiling) the juices with their Flavors 
are kept within. 

If the fat is not hot enough, the food comes out 
soaked with grease and highly indigestible. On the 
other hand, care must be taken that the fat is not 
scorched. This point is best explained in one of the 
Agricultural Department's helpful publications. 1 

1 "Economical Use of Meat at Home," by C. F. Langworthy and 
Caroline L. Hunt. Farmers' Bulletin 391. 



SAVORY COOKING 133 

"The chief reason for the bad opinion in which fried 
food is held by many is that it almost always means 
eating burnt fat. When fat is heated too high it 
splits up into fatty acids and glycerin, and from the 
glycerin is formed a substance (acrolein) which has a 
very irritating effect upon the mucous membrane. All 
will recall that the fumes of scorched fat make the 
eyes water. It is not surprising that such a substance, 
if taken into the stomach, should cause digestive dis- 
turbance. Fat in itself is very valuable food, and the 
objection to fried foods because they may be fat seems 
illogical." 

The temperature required varies with the different 
foods and styles desired. On this point, as well as on 
the relative merits of the various baths to be used, 
sufficient information is given in cook books. The 
best frying baths are made of suet and veal fat, fresh 
butter, and pure olive oil. For the sake of economy, 
and variety in flavor, it is also advisable to use the 
drippings from fried bacon, ham, or sausage — but not 
from fish. 

In speaking of broiled meat I referred to the slightly 
burnt taste which is relished by epicures — somewhat 
as dissonances are by music-lovers. In the case of fried 
and roast meats, properly browned on the surface, there 
is a somewhat similar but less dissonant flavor which 
comes from browning the meat with fat. If the brown- 
ing has been done scientifically many persons (I am one 



134 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

of them) prefer the outside slices of roast meat to the 
inside. 

COMBINING THE FLAVORS OF MEATS AND VEGETABLES. 

Apart from the adventitious browned flavors just 
referred to there are in broiled, baked, and roast meats 
usually no combination flavors except such as come 
from the butter and salt that are added after the meat 
is done. 

Two most important details to know are that if the 
salt is put on meat before it is broiled, it allows the 
juices to escape; but that in frying a steak (which is 
not a barbarism if properly done) salt added at once 
helps to make a delicious gravy. 

In the frying of meats or of vegetables (parsnips, 
carrots, egg plant, oyster plant, and particularly po- 
tatoes) a desirable extra flavor can also be added by 
using the fat previously fried out of bacon, ham, or 
sausages, or the fat from a pot-roast or the soup kettle. 

Endless possibilities for combination Flavors are of- 
fered by two of the cooking processes: boiling and 
stewing. The first of these has already been briefly 
considered under the head of the Philosophy of Soup- 
making. 

Stewing is not usually considered one of the most 
"high-toned" of cooking processes; yet, if scientifically 
done — think of a real Irish stew! — it provides dishes 
second to none in savoriness — dishes fit for gods, kings, 



SAVORY COOKING 135 

and epicures. And a man might live a hundred years 
and have a new variety of stew every day, so 
great are the possible permutations and combinations of 
vegetables and meats. 

More savory results can often be secured by stewing 
than by any other process of cooking. It is well- 
known that the "sweetest" (that is, the most highly 
flavored) meat is that near a bone. Moreover, the 
bone itself, thoroughly cooked, yields most agreeable 
flavors of its own. Now, in making stews, the bony 
parts (shoulder, neck, end-pieces of ribs) are used, and 
the prolonged cooking called for by this process results 
in extracting all the sweetness from the bones and the 
meat nearest them. Boiling yields similar results, but 
the savors pass into the liquid, leaving the meat almost 
flavorless, whereas in a stew the flavors enrich the 
gravy, the vegetables, and the meat alike, in a particu- 
larly appetizing manner. 

In ordinary stewing — the method of preparing the 
French boeuf a la mode, or the Irish stew — the meat 
and the vegetables are put into water and allowed to 
simmer slowly. 

A more elaborate method of stewing is known as 
braising. In this process a strong liquor of vegetables 
and meats is used in place of water, and it is usually 
advised that both the vegetables and the meat be 
fried in a little fat before being placed in the pot to 
braise. 



136 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

This does not seem altogether scientific, because in 
a stew the object is not to keep in the juices but to get 
them out and combine them. 

A less objectionable way, which some consider the 
last refinement necessary to produce a first rate braise 
is thus described: "Have well-fitted to the braise- 
pot a sunk copper or iron cover, in which some hot coals 
or charcoal are placed, in order to transmit downwards 
a scorching heat to the top of the portion which is un- 
covered by the liquid in the pot below. In this case it 
is usual to cover the portion, especially if a fowl, with 
a piece of white paper, which serves to shield a delicate 
morsel from a too fierce heat." 1 

SAVORY FOOD FOR EVERYBODY. 

It is to be greatly regretted that in America, as in 
England, the process of making diverse savory stews is 
so little understood. For not only do such dishes ap- 
peal to the most fastidious epicures, but a thorough 
and general knowledge of correct stewing would go 
far toward solving the problem of providing savory 
food for everybody. 

Too many Americans look on the ability to buy the 
most expensive cuts of butcher's meats as the gauge of 
prosperity, if not respectability. Now, the difference 

1 Sir Henry Thompson devotes six valuable pages of his "Food and 
Feeding" (Chap. V. and Appendix) to the subject of stewing and 
braising. 



SAVORY COOKING 137 

between these expensive cuts and the cheaper ones lies 
much less in their nutritive value than in their texture 
and flavor. 

Inasmuch as I am preaching throughout this volume 
that the Flavor is all-important, this ought to justify 
the general scramble for the more expensive cuts, but 
it does not; for in truth these differences in Flavor and 
tenderness can be obliterated by skilful cooking, espe- 
cially in the stew pan. 

It has been well said that "the real superiority of a 
good cook lies not so much in the preparation of expen- 
sive or fancy dishes as in the attractive preparation of 
inexpensive dishes for every day and in the skilful 
combination of flavors." 

Has not the French chef been praised a thousand 
times for his alleged ability to prepare a host of tooth- 
some dishes from thistletops 1 ? 

The Government at Washington, which so kindly 
looks after our welfare in many ways, has not over- 
looked this matter. In a pamphlet (to which refer- 
ence has already been made,) issued as Farmers' 
Bulletin 391 for free distribution, and entitled "Eco- 
nomical Use of Meat in the Home," two of the Gov- 
ernment's experts in nutrition, Dr. C. F. Langworthy 
and Caroline L. Hunt, have given forty-three pages of 
practical information and advice, which, if generally 
heeded, would not only go far toward solving the high- 
cost-of-food problem, but toward making us a gastro- 



138 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

nomic nation. It is a document which cannot be too 
highly commended to the attention of all who are in- 
terested in cooking and eating. 

The object of the pamphlet is to show that the num- 
ber of "tasty" dishes which a good cook can make out 
of the cheaper cuts of meat or meat "left over" is 
almost endless. Directions are given for developing 
the natural flavor of meat even in the cheapest cuts 
and for further heightening the savors by the judicious 
use of condiments and sauces ; and these general direc- 
tions are followed by a number of special recipes, for 
making stews with dumplings; meat pies; meat with 
macaroni, or beans, or eggs; meat with vinegar, casse- 
role cookery; pounded or chopped meat, etc. 

In conclusion the authors refer to the strange preju- 
dice which some housekeepers seem to have against 
economizing in the ways suggested by them; upon 
which they comment that surely "the intelligent house- 
keeper should take as much pride in setting a good 
table at a low price as the manufacturer does in lessen- 
ing the cost of production in his factory." 

The trouble with most cookbooks is that they are so 
bulky that few have the patience to wade through 
them to get at the general remarks to be found here 
and there. This Government bulletin is so short, 
and yet covers so much ground, that it is likely to do 
a vast amount of missionary work in American 
kitchens. 



SAVORY COOKING 139 

MEAT EATING OF THE FUTURE. 

Boycotting the butchers may be an effective way of 
temporarily lowering the price of meat, but to make 
it permanently cheaper another method must be fol- 
lowed : we must eat less and thus decrease the demand. 

This we can do without depriving ourselves of any 
of the coveted pleasures of the table. We like to eat 
meats because we enjoy their Flavors; but it is possible 
and easy to enjoy these same Flavors in a way which 
makes our meals not only more economical but also 
more nutritious. 

This method has long been in use, but not to such 
an extent as it should be. It consists in extending the 
flavor of meat to other material which costs less but 
has a higher nutritive value. 

The most valuable pages of the Bulletin referred to 
in the last section are those exemplifying the diverse 
methods of thus extending the flavor of meat. The 
recipes are preceded by these illuminating words : 

"Common household methods of extending the meat 
flavor through a considerable quantity of material 
which would otherwise be lacking in distinctive taste 
are to serve the meat with dumplings, generally in the 
dish with it, to combine the meat with crusts, as in meat 
pies or meat rolls, or to serve the meat on toast and 
biscuits. Borders of rice, hominy, or mashed po- 
tatoes are examples of the same principles applied in 



140 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

different ways. By serving some preparation of flour, 
rice, hominy, or other food rich in starch with the meat 
we get a dish which in itself approaches nearer to the 
balanced ration than meat alone and one in which 
the meat flavor is extended through a large amount 
of the material." 

Dr. Wiley, in discussing this aspect of the question, 
goes so far as to express the conviction that "the meat 
eating of the future may not be regarded so much as a 
necessity as it has in the past, but that meats will be 
used 7nore as condimental substances than as staple 
foods. 

Meats as condiments rather than as foods ! There is 
a revolutionary doctrine for you ! — a doctrine subversive 
of all the beliefs and practices of the past! Yet it is 
a doctrine which meat-eaters may accept calmly in view 
of the fact that what delights them in meat is its 
Flavor, and that even with a minimum quantity of 
meat this flavor can be preserved, developed, and ex- 
tended in the diverse ways hinted at in the preceding 
pages. 

In view of this truth, meat-eaters should ponder 
what Dr. Wiley says in favor of our eating less meat 
than we do and using it as a condiment : 

"In all meat, for instance, that costs twenty-five cents 
a pound, such as steaks, there is over one-third or a 
half of it which is inedible, so that the edible portion 
really costs double the amount. On the contrary, 



SAVORY COOKING 141 

when a pound of flour or maize is purchased, the price 
of which is perhaps only one-eighth that of meat, the 
whole of it is edible. Thus, from the mere point of 
economy as well as nutrition, the superiority of cereals 
and other vegetable products is at once evident. On 
the one hand, a cereal is almost a complete food contain- 
ing all the elements necessary to nutrition, and it costs 
only a few cents a pound. On the other hand, a steak 
or roast is only a partial food and it costs much more 
than cereals." 

THE FOLLY OF VEGETARIANISM. 

The vegetarians who would banish all meat from our 
diet must not infer from the remarks just quoted that 
Dr. Wiley endorses their doctrine. He is an epicure as 
well as a man of science, and no epicure will ever advo- 
cate exclusive vegetarianism. While conceding that 
man "cannot be nourished by meat alone," but that he 
"can live and flourish without meat," he holds that he 
"is an omnivorous animal both by evolution and neces- 
sarily by heredity" ; and he has written much, and con 
amore, about the pleasures of the table provided by 
meats cooked in savory ways. 

It is needless to dwell on the fact that most persons 
find meats more appetizing and digestible than any 
other foods, and that it would therefore be ridiculous 
as well as harmful to banish them from our tables. 

The chief argument against vegetarianism is that 



142 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

it would deprive us of thousands of the delicious plain 
or combination Flavors which make our food appetiz- 
ing and digestible; and this argument is so irrefutable, 
so crushing, that not another word need be wasted on 
the subject. The Flavor Test settles it for all time, as 
it does everything relating to food. 

WHEN TO USE CONDIMENTS AND SAUCES. 

Salt has been denned humorously as that which, if 
not put in the soup, spoils it. 

Potatoes, eggs, and many other foods are thus 
"spoiled" if eaten without a pinch of salt. It is, in 
fact, added to most cooked foods, by whatever methods 
prepared. 

Bread requires a considerable amount of salt to 
make it tasty. American bakers usually put in too 
little, and that is not only one of the reasons why our 
bread is so inferior to the best European, but explains 
the prevalence of the habit of eating salted butter, 
which, as previously pointed out, is as great a gas- 
tronomic barbarism as it would be to eat salted ice 
cream or drink salted coffee or tea, although under 
the circumstances it is more pardonable than it would 
be if the bakers were not such bunglers. 

In many countries some of the most important condi- 
ments — salt, sugar, vinegar, mustard, and pepper — are 
placed on the table so that every one may season his 
food to suit his individual taste. Yet in most cases 



SAVORY COOKING 143 

these condiments do not give such good results when 
used at table as when added to the food while it is 
cooking. 

It is well known that nothing so exasperates a French 
cook as to see some one (Americans and Englishmen 
are the chief sinners) take a salt shaker in one hand, 
a pepper box in the other, and sprinkle their contents 
over the dish he has prepared, without even trying to 
find out whether he had properly seasoned it in the 
kitchen. 

Our addiction to such a habit is, of course, a lamenta- 
ble confession that our cooks usually know not how to 
season food. It comes to us generally in such an in- 
sipid condition that we take it for granted that we 
must do something to make it palatable. 

Apart from the table condiments just named there 
are many others which are usually reserved for the 
kitchen. Among these are allspice, bay leaf, capers, 
celery seed, cinnamon, cloves, curry, garlic, onions, 
ginger, nutmeg, sage, thyme. Also, a great variety of 
bottled sauces and of flavoring extracts, such as the 
essences of vanilla, lemon, almonds, etc. 

At the risk of wearying the reader by seeming always 
to harp on the same string, I must call attention to the 
fact that, with the sole important exception of sugar, 
all these diverse condiments have practically no direct 
nutritive value but are used the world over simply be- 
cause of their agreeable Flavors. 



144 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

If they lose these Flavors — as they do if their volatile 
essences escape, or if they are adulterated (which is 
frequent, because so easy) the only thing to do is to 
throw them into the garbage pail. 

Greater even than the number of spices and condi- 
ments is that of sauces. These, also, are of two kinds : 
some of them, like tomato, walnut, or mushroom 
catsups, Worcestershire sauce, pickles, and tobasco, 
are served at table, while another very large class of 
sauces is usually made fresh in the kitchen for each 
meal. 

All of these sauces — once more it must be parroted — 
like the spices and condiments just discussed, are 
valued solely because of their Flavors — their impor- 
tance to the Science of Savory Cooking. 

One of the most important branches of this science 
relates to the proper use of sauces and condiments. 

Many persons commit the gastronomic sin of pour- 
ing a bottled sauce over a plate of meat or fish without 
previously ascertaining whether it needs any season- 
ing. 

Surely, among all the food Flavors, nothing is more 
delicious than the natural savor of fresh sole or salmon, 
or a juicy steak or chop just off the grill. To put 
any kind of sauce — be it the best in the world — on such 
a dish is as unpardonable as it would be to pour cologne 
over a bunch of fragrant violets. 

It is when the fish is a trifle "tired," or the meat 



SAVORY COOKING 145 

without much flavor of its own, as so often happens, 
that these commercial sauces come to the rescue. Used 
only on such occasions, they have their value; and they 
are also desirable because of the variety they supply in 
the combination of flavors. 

The French make hardly any use of bottled sauces; 
theirs are domestic, made in their own kitchens, and 
they attach more importance to them than to anything 
else in culinary art. 

"Sauces, by the care and labor they require, by the 
costly sacrifices which they necessarily involve, ought to 
be considered as the essential basis of good cookery," 
according to Dubois-Bernard. "A man is never a good 
cook," he adds, "if he does not possess a perfect knowl- 
edge of sauces, and if he has not made a special study 
of the methodical principles on which their perfection 
depends." 

The sauces provided in Parisian restaurants and pri- 
vate houses are certainly delicious; yet the French often 
err — and that is almost their only serious gastronomic 
fault — in sacrificing to them the delicious natural 
Flavors of diverse prime meats, just as Americans and 
Englishmen do by pouring on their bottled sauces. 

Butter has among its many virtues that of develop- 
ing the natural Flavors of meats and vegetables and 
may therefore often be used as a sauce in plain cook- 
ing a 1'Anglaise. But, except for occasional variety, 
other sauces should be allowed to assert themselves 



146 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

over the natural food flavors only when these are not of 
the best. 

COOK BOOKS. 

Theodore Child — an American gastronomic mission- 
ary who unfortunately died young while traveling in 
Persia — remarks in his book, Delicate Feasting, that 
while there are hundreds of cook books, many of them 
admirable in their way, and bought by many, few are 
read or used, for the reason that most of them consist 
of a vast number of recipes, and "a cook must be al- 
ready very learned in his art in order to know how to 
use them with advantage." 

In other words, these books fail to explain the prin- 
ciples of the art of cooking — the ways of preserving, 
developing, and combining Flavors — as I have at- 
tempted to do in this chapter. 

There are exceptions, and the best of these, so far as 
I know, is Mary Ronald's Century Cook Book in which 
various methods of cooking are explained lucidly, so 
that those who boil, fry, broil, and so on, not only may 
know what to do but why to do it thus and not other- 
wise. The different sections, on meats, fish, vegetables, 
entrees, breads, desserts, etc., all have prefatory pages 
of most useful condensed information. 

A fairly complete list of the best cook books and 
other treatises on gastronomic topics may be found in 
Ellwanger's Pleasures of the Table. 



SAVORY COOKING 147 

No fewer than 2,500 books and brochures, mostly 
French, are listed in George's Vicaire's Bibliographie 
Gastronomique. 

Probably the best and most widely used of the 
French cook books are those of Urbain-Dubois. There 
are seven of them : Cuisine Classique, Cuisine Artistique, 
Grand Livre des Patissiers et des Confiseurs, Patisserie 
D'Aujourd'kui, Cuisine D'Aujourd'hui, Ecole des 
Cuisiniers, and ha Cuisine de tous les Pays, which in- 
cludes recipes of all the nations who know how to 
eat. 

To another French classic, Richardin's La Cuisine 
Francaise (JJArt du Bien Manger) with its 2,000 
recettes, its menus of historic as well as gastronomic in- 
terest, I shall refer in the next chapter. 

The Germans and Austrians not only have books on 
the special ways of preparing food prevalent in dif- 
ferent parts of the country, but books about the special- 
ties of other countries, such as the making of marmalade 
in the English way, etc. 

The author of Die Kunst des Essens, Emil Weissen- 
turn, took the trouble to make lists of the still surviv- 
ing cook books of various countries. Of 17 written in 
the fifteenth century, 10 were Latin, 1 English, while 
Germany, Italy and France each contributed 2. In the 
sixteenth century Latin was still in the lead with 42, 
followed by Germany with 30 and France with 21. 
Italy contributed 16, Spain 5, Greece 2, England 2. 



148 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

In the seventeenth century France heads the list with 
104 books; Germany printed 39, 31 were in Latin, 18 
Italian, 10 English, 7 Dutch, 1 Portuguese, 1 Swedish. 
In the eighteenth century Germany comes to the fore 
with 96, France following with 60 and England with 
34; 14 are in Latin, 11 Dutch, 5 Italian, 4 Spanish, 
3 Swedish. 

In the nineteenth century Germany's lead is still 
more remarkable — 374 books as against 152 con- 
tributed by France. England makes a spurt with 118. 
Italy rises to 15; Sweden contributes 10, Holland 8, 
Poland 7, while Latin survives with 7. 

Of recent English and American books that have 
come to me for review I liked particularly Nicolas 
Soyer's Standard Cookery, Marvin H. Neil's How to 
Cook in Casserole Dishes and Practical Cooking and 
Serving, by Janet McKenzie Hill, which is a com- 
plete manual of not only how to cook food, but how 
to select and serve it. The author is the editor of the 
"Boston Cooking School Magazine," and she has a 
great deal of interesting and valuable information to 
impart. 

In 1911 Soyer's Paper Bag Cookery was published. 
In it the famous chef who originated paper bag cook- 
ery — which has many advantages provided the right 
kind of paper is used — explained his method. His 
Standard Cookery includes the substance of the smaller 
book while at the same time covering all the branches 



SAVORY COOKING 149 

of cooking, with over four hundred pages of menus. 
Hors-d'CEuvres are here treated more fully than in any 
other English book, fifteen pages being given to them. 
No fewer than seventy pages are given to this subject 
in Escoffier's excellent Le Guide Culinaire. 







Chafing dish cooking 



French raffinement is shown in many of Soyer's reci- 
pes. Under "Fried Eggs," for example the average 
American cook will read with astonishment that they 
should be dealt with one at a time and that, with a 
wooden spoon, the yolk should be quickly covered up 
with the solidified portions of the white in order to keep 



150 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

the former soft. Imagine Bridget taking so much 
trouble. She might, perhaps, be induced to heed these 
directions in making an omelette: "Heat the pan un- 
til nearly a brown color. This will not only lend an 
exquisite taste to the omelette but will be found to en- 
sure the perfect setting of the eggs." Such seeming 
trifles make perfection. 

Casserole Cookery is quite important enough to have 
a book to itself; it is the cookery of the future, and 
Mme. Neil's monograph of 252 pages should be, like 
the Century Cook Book and Soyer's Standard Cookery, 
or Mme. Hill's book, in every kitchen. 

In French restaurants more is always charged for 
casserole dishes than for others and they are decidedly 
worth it. The Flavor of food is particularly rich and 
appetizing when it has been cooked slowly in earthen- 
ware pots. For braising, pot roasting, and stewing, 
which are slow-cooking processes, the casserole is far 
superior to metal pans in every way. 

Chafing Dish Cooking is treated in Chapter XIV of 
the Century Cook Book, and there are several smaller 
volumes specially devoted to this interesting branch 
of the art — dining-room cooking it might be called — 
one by Alice L. James. 

Who has not enjoyed a welsh rarebit made in a 
chafing dish — or terrapin, or lobster a la Newburg, or 
chicken livers, or crab toast, smelts, venison, etc. 2 

For housekeepers of moderate means who want to 



SAVORY COOKING 151 

know what wonders of palatable cooking can be 
achieved with scraps and left-overs, among other things, 
no guide is better than The Helping ¥Land Cook Book 
by Marion Harland and Christine Terhune Herrick. 
It contains menus for every breakfast, lunch and dinner 
from the first of January to the last of December. 

While purchasers of fireless cookers are always pro- 
vided with brief printed instructions, I would advise 
every owner of such a box to get a copy of Margaret 
J. Mitchell's Fireless Cook Book, which contains full 
directions, with recipes and menus. The question of 
seasoning is discussed; there are chapters on meats, 
vegetables, desserts, etc.; hints as to how to tell good 
material from bad; directions to prevent over or under 
cooking, etc. 





A NOBLE ART 

O one who has read the last chapter, 
and Chapter II can fail to be con- 
vinced that cooking is not only a 
science, but the most important of all 
sciences — the science on which our 
health depends more than on any 
other; a science concerning which Sir 
Henry Thompson has truly said 
that an adequate recognition of its value in prolonging 
healthy life and in promoting cheerful temper, preva- 
lent good nature, and improved moral tone, "would 
achieve almost a revolution in the habits of a large 
part of the community." 

Nor is cookery merely a science, it is also an art. 
It can and will be classed in the future as one of the 
fine arts. 

A famous French lawyer once declared that he 
would not believe in the advent of real civilization 

152 



A NOBLE ART 153 

until a chef had been elected a member of the Institute 
of Arts and Sciences. 

The details given in the preceding chapter show 
how a good cook can vary the Flavors of food as a 
composer varies his orchestral colors; and if she does 
her work with intelligence and con amore she can get 
genuine artistic delight therefrom. At the same time 
she will have the moral satisfaction of knowing that 
she is giving gastronomic pleasure to those who benefit 
by her art. 

A cook can be genuinely creative, inventing new 
sauces, new flavors, new combinations, new dishes, with 
appropriate names for them, thus acquiring universal 
fame, as did Careme and many others, among them 
Bechamel, whose name has become a household word 
the world over, not because he was a marquis but be- 
cause he invented a new sauce. 

From a moral point of view, cooking is one of the 
noblest of the arts. The old adage that the way to a 
man's heart is through his stomach is often sneered at 
as being materialistic if not coarse. It is no such 
thing; it simply hints at the truth that it is extremely 
difficult for a man to be amiable and loving when he 
suffers the pangs of dyspepsia. On this subject one of 
the 30,000 persons who wrote to the London "Tele- 
graph" in answer to the question, "Is Marriage A Fail- 
ure?" made some remarks which every young woman 
who is, or expects to be, a wife should ponder deeply: 



154 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Where the husband is an intellectual man, and engaged in 
intellectual pursuits, good cookery assumes a tenfold importance, 
as the want of physical exercise entailed by most intellectual 
occupations renders it imperative that all food eaten shall be of 
first-class quality and cooked to perfection. The most intellect- 
ual man in existence ceases to be intellectual while he has a 
couple of pounds or so of bad food slowly decaying in his stom- 
ach instead of digesting. Is "A Young Girl's" ideal of married 
life to have the man she loves always bright and cheerful, al- 
ways intellectual, and generally at his best, and to have as 
strong and healthy, and even brighter and better company, at 
sixty and seventy than at twenty-four? I am sure it is. Then 
let her give him a chance of realizing that ideal by giving the 
utmost attention to his dinners, so that the food he eats is on 
his stomach and brain like feathers, and not like lead. If she 
wishes him to degenerate into an ill-tempered, exacting grumbler 
before forty, or to prefer dining anywhere rather than at home, 
then let her devote herself wholly to the drawing-room depart- 
ment of the house, and leave the kitchen and the dining-room 
to hired servants. Good cooks quickly become bad ones where 
the mistress neglects personal superintendence, and just so long 
as ladies have a soul above cookery will ill-temper and dyspep- 
sia, with all their consequent train of ills and discomforts, be 
the rule, and not the exception, in middle-class English homes. 

THE SOCIAL CASTE OF COOKS. 

One of the most amazing phenomena in the United 
States is the great number of girls of all classes who 
consider kitchen work beneath them and not worthy 
of serious attention. 

Girls of the working classes are not in the least 
ashamed to confess their absolute ignorance of the art 
of cooking, though they know that after marriage they 



ANOBLEART 155 

must cook for their families. Then they bewail their 
fate if their husbands, tormented by dyspepsia, seek 
relief in strong drink. France, it has often been said, 
is on the whole a sober nation because it is a nation 
of good cooks. 

American girls should remember that, as a Chicago 
expert has testified, "few men abandon or get a divorce 
from a woman who is a good cook." 

The most amazing of our young women are the fac- 
tory workers and shop-girls who imagine they are of a 
higher social caste than cooks, and look down on them. 

What makes this attitude the more ridiculous is that 
the mothers of all these girls were cooks (mostly very 
bad ones!) and that all of these girls themselves, when 
they marry, must spend much of their time in the 
kitchen. 

To be sure, they are not paid for this work, as pro- 
fessional cooks are. 

Some of the social "reformers" are now demanding 
that husbands pay their wives for domestic work. If 
that point should be carried, what would be the social 
status of the wives — nine out of every ten in the coun- 
try — who cook for their families'? 

In future, if there is any looking down, it will be 
done by the cooks, whose work is infinitely more ele- 
vating, refined, scientific and artistic than that of fac- 
tory and shop girls, who, instead of enjoying the cooks' 
splendid opportunities for exercising their brains, their 



156 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

taste, and their inventive powers, are reduced to the 
level of mere machines by the deadly monotony of 
having to make so and so many dozen shirt-waists or 
paper boxes, or ruining their health by standing be- 
hind a counter, serving the same things, day after day 
and year after year, to customers most of whom look 
down on them as being of a lower social status. 

That settles the foolish notion that American girls 
refuse to become cooks because they do not wish to 
lose social caste. Society women are no more addicted 
to inviting the girls who wait on them in stores to 
their banquets or teas than they are the girls who wait 
on them at home or preside over their kitchens. 

Moreover, no mistress would dare to treat her cook 
so contemptuously, so insultingly, as shop girls and 
factory girls are often treated, or as chorus girls are 
treated habitually on the stage. 

French supremacy is demonstrated in many ways, 
not the least of which is the recognition, generations 
ago, of the noble status of the cook, domestic or pro- 
fessional. 

It may not be literally true that French girls read 
cookery-books with the avidity with which ours read 
novels, but certainly they are proud of their ability 
to cook savory dishes. 

An article in the New York "Times" (February 11, 
1912) on the most exclusive clubs in Paris, where the 
chefs receive the salaries of ambassadors, states that 



A NOBLE ART 157 

members "have obtained permission for their daugh- 
ters — young women, belonging to well-known French 
families — to be present in the kitchen while the head 
cook is preparing dinner every afternoon. While the 
chef officiates in front of the huge furnace which stands 
in the center of the kitchen he is surrounded by a group 
of fashionably dressed young women, who follow all 
his movements with the greatest interest and listen 
eagerly to his explanations as he initiates them into the 
mysteries of his art." 

The French cuisine is preeminent to-day because a 
century ago the daughters of the best French houses 
were taught to cook. And, as Anatole France has re- 
marked, these girls knew that "there is no humiliation 
in washing dishes." 

To be sure, dish washing, as done at present, is 
monotonous and hardly entertaining. But if we tried 
to avoid all things in this world that are monotonous 
and not entertaining, what would happen? 

My own work includes some hours of daily drudgery. 
What busy man's or woman's does n't 1 ? Why discrim- 
inate against the kitchen? Read Marion Harland's 
delightful little book on Household Management 
(New York: Home Topics Publishing Co., 23 Duane 
St.) ; you can do it in an hour and you will benefit par- 
ticularly by the chapter on "Fine Art in 'Drudgery,' " 
in which, writes the distinguished author, "I give a 
recipe for dish-washing as carefully and with as much 



158 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

pleasure as I would write out directions for making an 
especially delicious entree or dessert." 

Women and men who prepare for the stage, dramatic 
or musical, have to undergo an enormous amount of 
drudgery and keep it up all their lives. In the summer 
of 1912 I heard the greatest of all pianists, Paderewski, 
daily practising elementary "five-finger" exercises, and 
he admitted that it took great strength of will to keep 
it up; but he knows the truth of the remark once made 
by Hans von Biilow that if he neglected his practicing 
one day he knew it; if two days, his friends knew it; 
if three days, the public knew it. 

That is a kind of drudgery compared with which 
dishwashing is a picnic. Most dishwashers, moreover, 
dawdle dreadfully. They could do their work in one 
half if not one quarter the time it takes them. See 
the remarks of the astonished Isabella Bird Bishop in 
her book on the Rocky Mountains on the way she saw 
two young bachelors disposing of their kitchen work in 
the twinkle of an eye. 

ROYALTY IN THE KITCHEN. 

England is in a state of transition. As the London 
"Times" (October 29, 1910) remarked, there are in 
that country many women who would be proud, and 
even consider it rather smart, to cook a dish of savory 
eggs in a chafing-dish on a silver-strewn sideboard, but 
who would nevertheless be ashamed to say that they 



A NOBLE ART 159 

could knead and bake a loaf of bread which could 
rival that made by their cooks. 

A change is, however, impending, and the good ex- 
ample comes from those socially highest up. Queen 
Victoria's daughters had to spend many hours in the 
kitchen, and the present Queen also is, as the "Times" 
informs us, an expert cook, and altogether "a pattern 
mother and a skilled housekeeper, who would put many 
middle-class mistresses to shame by her accurate and 
up-to-date knowledge of details." 

Queen Alexandra was the chief patroness of the Uni- 
versal Cookery and Food Association, founded in 1885. 

Noblesse oblige. The English royal family feels that 
it is its duty to set a good example to the women of the 
whole country in this matter, and the example is being 
followed widely. There is, indeed, a nation-wide 
awakening in the United Kingdom regarding the im- 
portance of the culinary art, as we shall see in a mo- 
ment, in considering the subject of cooking in schools. 

Sarah baked and cooked for Abraham, though she 
could command as many servants as a queen. 

It would be easy to give a long list of queens and 
other women of the highest nobility who recognized the 
nobility of the art of cooking by their interest and par- 
ticipation in it. 

Kings, too, have not held it beneath their dignity to 
prepare savory dishes with their own hands. Louis 
XVIII invented the truffes a la furee d'ortolans, and 



160 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

always prepared the dish himself, assisted by the Due 
d'Escars. 

Frederick the Great was too busy with his political 
work and his flute to spend his time in the kitchen, 
but he wrote a poem in praise of his cook. 

In Germany, as in England, it is obligatory on the 
princesses of the Empire to learn how to cook a good 
meal ; and the daughters of the aristocracy of all grades 
follow their example. 

Louis XIII prepared his own game, and prided him- 
self on his preserves, while Louis XV also was an ama- 
teur cook. He was particularly fond of making rich 
sauces. 

Under Louis XIV Conde won international fame as 
inventor of an improved bean soup. A Papal Cook 
Book was printed in Venice in 1570 by order of Pope 
Pius V. Richelieu and Mazarin invented dishes still 
named after them. The philosopher Montaigne wrote 
a book on the science of eating {Science de la gueule). 
Sauce Colbert is named after the statesman who origi- 
nated it. Bechamel was immortalized by a new sauce 
of his concoction. When Careme went with Lord 
Stuart, the English Ambassador to Vienna, he was 
treated as a personal friend. Louis XVIII, George IV 
and other crowned heads vied for his allegiance but he 
preferred to bestow the benefit of his supreme art on 
Rothschild in Paris to whom he had been presented by 
Prince Louis Rohan, 



A NOBLE ART 161 

Volumes might be written regarding the personal in- 
terest in culinary art taken by rulers of all kinds. The 
highest form of royalty is genius. 

In France, particularly, the rulers in the world of 
science, art, and literature have been as devoted gastro- 
nomes as the political rulers; and with astonishing fre- 
quency these great men have taken not merely an epi- 
curean interest in the pleasures of the table, but have 
endeavored to multiply them. 

Striking confirmation of this statement may be found 
in "L'Art du Bien Manger," by Gustave Geffroy and 
Edmond Richardin, 375 pages of which are devoted, 
under the heading "Ecrivains Cuisiniers," to the recipes 
of dishes originated and promulgated by well-known 
men of letters, among them such eminent writers as 
Alexandre Dumas, father and son, Andre Theuriet, 
Jules Claretie, Edmond Rostand, etc. 

Lord Bacon thought it no shame, as Frederick W. 
Hackwood recalls, "to bend his mighty intellect to the 
problems of the kitchen." 

David Hume, on retiring from public life, declared 
that he would devote the remaining years of his life 
to the science of cooking. 

Henry VIII made a gift of a manor to his cook for 
originating a good pudding, and royal honors have been 
paid to many culinary inventors. By the ancient Ro- 
mans Apicius was "almost deified for discovering how 
to maintain oysters fresh and alive during long jour- 













A fifteenth century kitchen in France 



ANOBLEART 163 

neys." In Athens Dionysos was highly esteemed as 
the inventor of bread; in his honor there were street 
processions of men carrying loaves. 

ROSSINI, CAREME AND PADEREWSKI. 

Just as Caruso is prouder of the caricatures he draws 
than of his achievements as the leading tenor of his 
time, so Rossini prided himself more on his skill in 
dressing a salad than on his having written successful 
operas. He frequently delighted his guests with dishes 
prepared by himself, and used to declare, half seriously, 
that he had missed his vocation. 

One day, when a friend, taking him at his word, 
asked him why he had not become a cook, he replied 
that he would have done so had not his early education 
been too much neglected. 

A famous French chef, proud of his profession, de- 
clared that while there have been musicians and other 
artists who were already famous at the age of twenty, 
preeminence in cooking has never occurred under the 
more mature age of thirty. 

Careme, at an early age, had the ambition, as he 
relates in his memoirs, of elevating his profession to 
an art. For ten years he studied with the most eminent 
chefs, besides reading books and taking notes like a 
scholar. 

Like all genuine artists, he was grateful for true ap- 
preciation of his art. Of Talleyrand he wrote: "He 



164 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

understands the genius of a cook, he respects it, he is 
the most competent judge of delicate progress, and his 
expenditures are wise and great at the same time." 

Why do not great culinary artists abound in 
America? 

Because there is too little appreciation of their 
art. 

Paderewski, in his chateau on the shores of Lake 
Geneva, where he lives like a king of epicures, thanks 
to the intelligent and artistic housekeeping of his 
devoted wife (the Baroness of Rosen), told me an 
anecdote which illustrates this point. 

During one of his first tours in the United States he 
enjoyed a dinner which was equal to anything he could 
have expected in one of the best Parisian restaurants, 
He was so surprised and pleased that he sent his thanks 
and compliments to the chef. 

A few years later, happening to be in the same city. 
he again went to that restaurant. The meal he got 
was still far above the average, but was not as good as 
before. However, on the occasion of a third visit, he 
again tried the same place. The food was uninterest- 
ing from the beginning of the meal to the end. 

He asked the head waiter whether the former chef 
had left. He had not left, the waiter informed him; 
and, on being pressed for an explanation of the change 
in the quality of the meals, he said : 

"If you had to play, night after night, before an 



A NOBLE ART 165 

audience of barbarians who did not appreciate the best 
things in your performances, would you continue, year 
after year, to play as well as you do now?' 

Paderewski had to confess to him that, in all proba- 
bility, he would not. 

LOOKING DOWN ON OTHERS. 

In my career as a musical critic I have found that I 
could do much more toward improving the artistic do- 
ings of singers and players by praising their best things 
than by finding fault with their poorest. 

In the culinary art, likewise, the reader will find that 
far better results are reached by praising the cook for 
her successes than by never speaking to her except to 
find fault. It makes her try to earn more praise, not 
only in the making of that particular dish but in the 
making of others. 

Above all things, a mistress who expects artistic 
dishes from a superior cook should never appear to be 
looking down on her. 

This looking down business, perhaps more than any- 
thing else, stands in the way of our getting good cooks. 

At the same time, perhaps more than anything else, 
it shows what fools these mortals be. 

All over the country, but particularly in the West, I 
have found that most families look down on other fam- 
ilies. It is chiefly a question of money. Those who 
have an income of $3,000 look down on those who have 



166 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

only $1,000 or $1,500, while those who have $10,000 
do all they can to show their superiority to three- 
thousanders, only to be, in turn, snubbed by those whose 
income is $20,000; and so on. 

One day in a California village where I was spend- 
ing the winter, I was surprised at the rudeness of a 
storekeeper with whom I had had some pleasant chats. 
He hardly answered my questions; in fact, he snubbed 
me. I found out next day that he had just inherited 
a large fortune, a piece of luck which he celebrated by 
promptly looking down on everybody he knew. 

As a rule, however, I regret to say, the women are 
more addicted than the men to this preposterously 
silly habit of looking down on others. Not to speak of 
its being extremely ill-mannered it is the most deadly 
obstacle to the solution of the problem of domestic help. 

We shall never have a sufficient supply of good help- 
ers until mistresses recognize the fact that cooking is a 
fine art, and that those who practise it should be treated, 
not as servants, but as practitioners of the most im- 
portant profession in the world — a profession which 
stands to the medical in the relation of prevention to 
cure; and that prevention is better than cure we all 
know. It 's cheaper, too. 

An old English writer has justly remarked that "the 
kitchen is the best pharmacopoeia." 

F. W. Hackwood calls attention to the suggestive 
fact that all the best old cookery books in the English 



ANOBLEART 167 

language were written by medical men. Sir Kenelm 
Digby and Dr. Mayerne in the seventeenth century, 
Dr. Mill and Dr. Hunter in the eighteenth, and Dr. 
Kitchiner in the nineteenth gave to the world "the best 
English cookery books of their respective eras." 

Queen Anne's physician, Dr. Lister, declared that 
"no man can be a good physician who has not a compe- 
tent knowledge of cookery." 

That is the opinion prevalent among the best medical 
men of to-day, who hold correct advice in regard to 
diet and the proper cooking of the food recommended 
to be usually of more importance than drugs. 

Many thousands of invalids have been killed by im- 
proper or badly cooked food. 

The foolish factory and shop girls who look down on 
kitchen work should be reminded of the fact that none 
of the contributors to the pages of the various women's 
journals are more honored than those who are famed 
for their skill in cooking and giving others the benefit 
of their experience. Some of these women, like Mrs. 
Rorer, Marion Harland, Mrs. Lincoln, Christine 
Terhune Herrick, Janet MacKenzie Hill, Mary 
Ronald, and Helen S. Wright, have won international 
repute. 

It is a curious fact that whereas in Europe most of 
the cook books have been written by men, in America 
the authors of such books are mostly women. From 
American women, with their keen intelligence and good 



168 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

taste, great things may be expected in the way of gas- 
tronomic progress. 

After the appearance in the "Century Magazine" of 
my brief remarks on the nobility of the art of cookery I 
heard of a wealthy young lady (I hope and believe 
there were many others) who was impelled, after read- 
ing them, to take up cooking and found it so fascinating 
that she neglected all her other pet diversions". I know 
educated young ladies who would rather cook than do 
anything else except, perhaps, go to the theater; they 
find it "so entertaining and engrossing." 

Many anecdotes might be related of women known 
to fame who love kitchen work. To take only one 
case : Mrs. Champ Clark, who came so near being first 
lady of the land, is a noted cook and domestic science 
expert. One who knows her writes that "she does 
much of her own cooking, especially when intimate 
friends dine with her and they rave over her dishes. It 
has the good old Southern taste, and is minus the fingle- 
fangle garnishments often employed to cover up in- 
feriority. Mrs. Clark's bread is a delight, and when 
she has the opportunity she always bakes it herself. 
She took first prize in a bread-baking contest once. 
She holds that such labor is not undignified for any of 
the first ladies of the land. The word 'servant' has 
been much abused, its early meaning c to serve' being 
beautiful, and certainly there is nothing better than to 
do something for somebody." 



ANOBLEART 169 

There are signs that the ladies of our time will take 
up the culinary art as a fashionable cult, as did the 
ladies of the French aristocracy in the seventeenth cen- 
tury. 

Many American society women are expert cooks and 
delight in inventing and concocting diverse dishes. 
One of the wealthiest women in the world is Mrs. 
George J. Gould. In summer, in her Adirondack 
camp, she spends much time in the kitchen helping to 
cook and to make preserves and jams. She has, it is 
said, "a perfect genius for combining things and crea- 
ting new sensations of taste." Her children, boys as 
well as girls, understand cooking in all its branches. 
Grace Aspinwall, in the "National Food Magazine" 
(May, 1910) gives details regarding the culinary do- 
ings of other society women — Mrs. Philip Lydig, Mrs. 
Joseph Widener, Mrs. Norman de R. Whitehouse, 
Mrs. Oliver Harriman and Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt, Jr. 

Mrs. Woodrow Wilson is also fond of cooking, and 
after her husband was elected President of the United 
States the newspapers printed pictures of her at work 
in the kitchen. 

DOES COOKING PAY*? 

The profitableness of the art also is a point not to be 
overlooked at a time when all professions, except cook- 
ing, are so overcrowded. 

Had Rossini become a chef, he would not have 



170 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

earned nearly as much money as he did with his operas. 
But he was exceptionally successful. The vast ma- 
jority of musicians, and other artists of all kinds and 
grades, have not only much more drudgery to undergo 
than cooks, but they also have much less chance to boast 
of a fat bank account. The best chefs command 
$5,000 to $10,000 a year with free board and lodging. 
Not to speak of other advantages, what a splendid 
chance this gives them to "look down on" people who 
earn less ! 

The average income of physicians, clergymen, and 
teachers in the United States is about $600 a year, and 
it is not rising steadily like that of cooks. The better 
class of "plain cooks" now get, in New York, $25 to 
$30 a month with room and board. Such a cook can 
easily put into the savings bank $200 to $300 a year, or 
half as much as is earned by the physicians, clergymen, 
and teachers, who have to pay for their board and lodg- 
ing. Does cooking pay"? 



v> 












7*'|tite 




VI 

THE FUTURE OF COOKING 



SCHOOL GIRLS LIKE IT. 



..r> 




ESPECT for the noble art of cooking 
is being greatly enhanced by its in- 
troduction into our public and pri- 
vate schools as an important branch of 
education. 

When this innovation was first sug- 
gested, the funny men of the news- 
papers seized on it as a welcome new subject for their 
jokes and cartoons, and even now not a few persons 
who have given the question insufficient thought 
speak of cookery as one of the fads and frills 
of our schools. But at a budget hearing in October, 
1910, Dr. W. H. Maxwell, Superintendent of the New 
York City Public Schools, made the memorable state- 
ment that he considered the retention of cooking-lessons 
more important than the study of languages. 

He might have gone further ; he might have said that 

171 



172 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

because health is more important than learning, there- 
fore cookery is more important than anything else now 
taught in our schools. 

It is useless to say that cooking should be taught at 
home. Most mothers, especially among the working 
classes, have neither the time nor the knowledge to 
teach their daughters how to prepare food rationally. 

Recognizing this fact, the Young Women's Christian 
Association also began some years ago to provide cul- 
inary lessons. 

One of the reasons for this action may be found in a 
statement made in the Twenty-seventh Report of the 
New York Cooking School, that "good coffee and a 
palatable meal often remove the need of strong drink, 
and many a working-woman has had her cares light- 
ened by the child who has learned to cook." 

An English girl, who had thus been taught, said: 
"Mother tells me she 'd make a drop of nice broth for 
the children out of an old bone as she 'd have thrown 
away." 

A glimpse of future possibilities is given by an ex- 
periment made in six Chicago schools, with 1,200 
pupils. The boys in the manual-training classes 
made fireless cookers, and the girls did the rest. One 
result was a rich, palatable soup costing one cent a bowl. 

The most encouraging aspect of the situation is that 
both in England and in America the experience has been 
that the children like the cooking best of all their lessons 



FUTURE OF COOKING 173 

and are glad to practise them at home. As one princi- 
pal wrote, "The cooking has been enthusiastically re- 
ceived by the pupils, and the parents are heartily in 
favor of it." 

BOYS AND SOLDIERS AS COOKS. 

Schoolboys also should, and will, be taught. They 
can help their mothers at home — why not? — especially 
in daughterless families; and there are many occasions 
in life — when the wife is ill, or when men are serving 
in the army or camping — when such knowledge will 
prove useful. 

Apart from practical considerations, it has an educa- 
tional value, too, training, as it does, the memory, the 
power of observation, the senses of taste and smell, and 
the inventive faculty, besides inculcating neatness and 
cleanliness. 

There are times when men who can cook receive bet- 
ter pay than most others, though their work be both 
easier and pleasanter. For instance, in an article en- 
titled "In Canada's Wilderness," which appeared in the 
New York "Evening Post" of September 1, 1910, the 
writer described the trip of a prospecting party through 
a section of the Northwest which was tapped by the 
Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad. Speaking of the cooks, 
he said that they were "good cooks, and a good cook in 
that country is almost worth his weight in fine rubies. 
They are paid from $75 to $80 a month, and receive 



174 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

housing and bedding. This is more money than any 
of the other men about an engineering camp receive, 
except the engineer himself." 

One of these cooks had been manager and part owner 
of a great tea plantation in Ceylon; another had been 
an officer in a British regiment and had served in the 
South African War. He had just sold $12,000 worth 
of property in Edmonton. 

The London "Daily Mail" of June 20, 1912, gives 
an account of an Oxford cooking school which has a 
special class for men who wish to learn to cook. It is 
well attended and the men, so the teacher says, "are 
very keen about the work, and much keener than the 
women would be as to details. Nothing escapes their 
attention." 

The men work in pairs with the simplest of utensils, 
and each lesson extends over an hour. Special stress is 
laid upon frying and stewing, and upon the different 
meals that can be prepared in a pot or pan over a camp 
fire. They are taught the various ways of cooking veg- 
etables, of making meat pies, and how to produce such 
delicacies as pancakes and scrambled or poached eggs. 
Each lesson affords time for cooking three dishes, and 
at the conclusion a number of recipes are given, and 
these are duly recorded for future reference. 

The London County Council began to encourage 
boys in the autumn of 1910 when a school for teaching 
them how to cook was started. There were fifteen 



FUTURE OF COOKING 175 

pupils. Two years later there were forty. It is only 
a small beginning, but from such an avalanche may 
grow. The aim of the school was stated to be to equip 
boys between fourteen and sixteen with a knowledge 
of practical cookery to enable them to fill positions as 
cooks in first-class hotels, clubs, and restaurants. The 
course lasts three years and positions are guaranteed at 
the end. 

According to official statistics, 106 boys in England 
attended cookery classes during 1910-1 1. 

Soldiers in all countries have to do a good deal of 
camp cooking, and they seem to enjoy it. Circular 11 
of the United States Bureau of Animal Industry is con- 
cerned with army cooking. The 1912 report of Brig.- 
Gen. Henry G. Shaw, Commissary General, shows that 
great advantage has resulted from the schools for bakers 
and cooks that have been established at Fort Riley, 
Kansas City, as well as at the Barracks in Washington 
and at the Presidio in San Francisco. During the year 
253 cooks, 131 bakers and 52 mess sergeants have been 
turned out by the schools as experts. 

An English translation has been published (London: 
Forster Ground Co.) of the French Manual of Field 
Cookery entitled Livre de Cuisine Militaire aux 
Manoeuvres et en Campagne. It is a pamphlet of 35 
pages, including specifications and pictures of necessary 
utensils, with simple recipes, and a preface by the 
French War Minister, who remarks, among other 



176 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

things, that it is no longer enough to appoint certain 
men to the duties of cooks, but it is "necessary that 
every man . . . should be able to prepare his own 
food and that of any of his comrades, who may not be 
in a position to do so, by means of the simple apparatus 
available." 

In continental countries there are many cooking 
schools for men. In Copenhagen, for instance, as we 
read in the "Lancet," "there is an old frigate moored in 
a canal close to the most fashionable center of the town. 
Here there is a school for ship's cooks. On board a 
ship with the limited space such as prevails at sea 
young cooks try their 'prentice hands at making dishes 
such as are served to passengers on sea voyages. There 
is an awning on the deck, tables are laid out, and nu- 
merous inhabitants of Copenhagen take their meals 
there, for they are both varied and inexpensive. Thus 
fully qualified cooks are being prepared for the sea, and 
it is not necessary to point out that, whether at sea or on 
shore, efficient cooking not only adds to the joys of life 
but is a very necessary aid to digestion." 

TRAVELING COOKING SCHOOLS. 

In some parts of Germany traveling cooking schools 
have been organized by the Government. In Prussia 
it is intended to provide one of them for every county. 
These schools move from place to place, remaining long 
enough in each to give instruction in housekeeping to 



FUTURE OF COOKING 177 

the daughters of laborers, craftsmen, and farmers. In 
the case of the farm girls the instruction includes the 
caretaking of animals, poultry culture, and the raising 
of fruits and vegetables. All the girls are taught to 
cook, to sew, to repair and clean clothing, and to keep 
the house clean, with other things relating to health and 
nutrition. 

One of the principal objects of these itinerant schools 
is to encourage the cultivation of a greater variety of 
vegetables in the home gardens. In most of the 
Thuringian villages, for instance, it is said that the only 
kind of vegetable known is cabbage. The teachers 
have had considerable difficulty in introducing variety, 
for the German peasant, like the lower classes every- 
where, wants to eat only what he has had since his 
childhood. But once tasted the new vegetables are 
usually welcomed and acclimated in the villages visited 
by the itinerant culinary missionaries. 

ENGLISH SCHOOL DINNERS. 

While the English are not gastronomically eminent 
among the nations of Europe, they are attaching more 
and more importance to kitchen work, especially in 
schools, in which lies the chief hope for the cooking of 
the future. 

This growing interest was illustrated by the Confer- 
ence on Diet in Public, Secondary, and Private Schools 
held in London in the last week of May, 1912. Prom- 



178 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

inent experts made addresses, discussing the question 
of school diet from various points of view. The "Daily 
Telegraph" of May 30, in concluding its account of the 
Conference, made some remarks which are quoted here- 
with, as they give a vivid glimpse of the admirable 
culinary work that is evidently being now done in 
English schools: 

"Of recent years more and more attention has been 
paid to the dietary in schools, and the general teaching 
of cookery will help on an improvement in a depart- 
ment of social life in which we are behind our Conti- 
nental neighbors. Happily, there are a considerable 
number of schools in which the menus are drawn up on 
well-ascertained principles, including the element of 
variety. Here is an example of dinners served at a 
large school at 8d. each to over 100 children. It is 
chosen from those used from May 13 to May 17: 

Monday. 

Boiled Beef and Carrots. Roast Mutton. 

Greens and Potatoes. 

Cake Pudding. Milk Pudding. 

Tuesday. 
Veal and Ham. Beefsteak Pie. 

Greens and Potatoes. 

Jam Roly-Poly. Milk Pudding. 

Wednesday. 

Roast Beef. Haricot Mutton. Rissoles. 

Greens and Potatoes. 

Fruit Salad and Sponge Cake. Milk Pudding. 



FUTURE OF COOKING 179 

Thursday. 

Roast Mutton. Stewed Steak. Potato Pie. 

Greens and Potatoes. 

Ginger Pudding. Milk Pudding. 

Friday. 

Fish. Roast Beef. Liver and Bacon. 

Greens and Potatoes. 

Rhubarb Tart. Cabinet Pudding. 

"If these menus reappear in the same order or con- 
nection it will be at a very distant date. The aim is to 
supply all the kinds of food necessary, and in a form the 
girls like. Pies, stews, and rissoles are great favorites, 
stews being the chief. This is fortunate, because a dish 
of stew of any kind is rich in fat and proteid, and if 
vegetables are added it becomes rich in salts too. The 
girls state each day at dinner which meat they wish 
for, and they help themselves to greens and potatoes. 
If they want a second helping of meat they can have it, 
but it is an unwritten law that they must finish all they 
take. It is also understood that if a girl does not eat 
her dinner she is not fit for afternoon school. This rule 
prevents elder girls getting the foolish notion that it is 
not 'nice' to have a good appetite. 

"Cookery is part of the curriculum, so that sooner or 
later every girl learns the importance of food, and that 
it is useless to try to 'make bricks without straw' — in 
fact, the dinners are a practical illustration of the teach- 
ing in the cookery room." 

The notion that it is not "nice" for a girl to have a 



180 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

good appetite is not so common as it used to be. Now 
that we know the importance of appetite to proper di- 
gestion this notion seems criminal as well as silly, and 
should be denounced as such in all schools where it may 
seem necessary. 

Like some of the Continental countries, England 
now also has traveling cooking schools. According to 
educational Blue Books issued in August, 1912, the 
record for the teaching of domestic science in 1910-11 
included under the head of cookery 327,526 scholars. 
Concerning the traveling schools we read with refer- 
ence to the North: 

"The county authority have provided a traveling van 
as a center for cookery teaching throughout the country 
districts. The van is practically a movable room, care- 
fully planned, with satisfactory arrangements, and has 
so far answered admirably. 

"The van remains for four weeks at each school 
visited, and where two classes of girls can be provided, 
lessons are given both morning and afternoon on each 
day. It is used as a center for classes formed from 
other schools (if any) within walking distance. When 
the van was at Sutton some girls walked two to three 
miles, but made no difficulty about the distance. The 
teacher is usually besieged by applications to admit 
older girls — and even women — to the classes. House- 
wifery is now taught as well as cookery. The van 
makes a pleasant little room, and the girls enjoy their 



FUTURE OF COOKING 181 

work and do it very well. The North Riding authority 
have now built a second van, which is already in use." 

Norfolk has a teacher who remains in a village for a 
fortnight, the children attending classes in a convenient 
kitchen of a farmhouse, adapted club-room, barn, &c, 
all day and every day during the fortnight. 

The inspectors show that already the influence of 
these classes has had a reflex in the homes. 

PROGRESS IN AMERICA. 

As far back as 1835 household economics was taught 
in young women's seminaries of the United States, as 
we are informed by Benjamin R. Andrews of the 
School of Industrial and Household Arts at Columbia 
University. In 1912 there were over 130 schools 
which gave collegiate degrees for proficiency in the 
courses in home-making, and it was clear from the way 
things were going that ere long every woman's college 
and high school in the country would have a domestic 
science department, if only to meet the competition of 
the Domestic Science schools which are springing up 
everywhere. 

These special schools for home-making turn out the 
really up-to-date girls — the girls whom young men 
want to marry. 

In recognition of the growing importance of this 
branch of education Representative Wilson of Illinois 
introduced, in 1911, a bill providing that a Bureau of 



182 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Domestic Science be established in the Department of 
Agriculture, with the object of investigating methods 
and appliances for the preparation of food and of gath- 
ering information to be used in training the boys as 
well as the girls of the schools and colleges in house- 
hold and institutional management. 

In 1910 there were in the elementary schools of Chi- 
cago only 75 kitchens available for use in giving the 
girls practical instruction in the art of cooking. In 
view of the fact that at least eight out of every ten girls 
in these schools are fated to spend a part of their lives 
in the kitchen, the superintendent of schools, Mrs. Ella 
Flagg Young started an agitation to have this number 
increased to 250. 

In commenting on this subject the Chicago "Tribune" 
remarked : "A girl who has to hold in after life solemn 
communion with stewpans and gridirons had better 
learn in advance how to use them. It will save her 
mortification, bitter tears, and scoldings." 

Not every husband takes the matter as calmly as the 
brute who, when his young wife met him with tears in 
her eyes and the information that the cat had eaten the 
first pie she had made for him, replied: "Don't cry, 
dear; we can easily get another cat!" 

Bad cooking drives a man to drink sooner than any- 
thing else. Many honeymoons are shortened by home- 
made dyspeptic pangs. "Poor food ruins dispositions 
as well as digestions." 



FUTURE OF COOKING 183 

"Fashionable private schools are adding cookery to 
their subjects," I am informed; and the girls "have 
lots of fun with it." A wise thing; for even if these 
girls marry men who are wealthy enough to hire a cook 
they ought to know something about culinary art — the 
more the better — so they can tell the cook how they 
want things. Cooks in general are not so bad as they 
are painted. Many of them are simply inexperienced 
and glad to learn the better way. I know this from 
abundant experience in my own household, and I bless 
the stars that I have a wife who can tell what's wrong 
and how to mend it. 

Most of the public schools in New York and many 
other cities now have courses in household science, in- 
cluding cooking. In the high schools attention is given, 
among other things, to the adulteration of foods and 
its detection ; to the effects of certain bacteria, useful or 
harmful, on foods; to nutritive values; to the physiol- 
ogy of digestion; to money and labor-saving appli- 
ances; nursing and diet for the sick; cost of living; 
home sanitation; home-made fireless cookers; food 
adulteration; cooking as a moral agent; etc. The 
courses vary somewhat in different schools, but that 
all of them tend to domestic happiness and lowering 
of the death rate is certain. 

There are indications that working girls are begin- 
ning to realize the gross injustice of marrying without 
having learned how to cook a palatable and digestible 



184 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

meal. The New York "Sun" of January 15, 1911, had 
an interesting article telling how Miss Mary E. Brock- 
man started evening classes in cooking, largely for girls 
about to be married. Some of them have worked in 
factories and shops for years, yet "hardly know an egg- 
beater from a potato-ricer." "They are eager to learn 
and make good pupils." "It might seem hard to work 
all day in a factory and spend two or three hours in the 
evening mixing flour or braising meat, but evidently 
several hundred young women find it almost a relaxa- 
tion. Once started, the subject becomes increasingly 
fascinating." 

"Increasingly fascinating." Bear that in mind. In 
cooking, as in piano-playing, and everything else, the 
drudgery comes first, but increasing skill brings satis- 
faction and joy to the artist cook — not to speak of the 
husband, the children, and the guests. And this joy 
lasts as long as life itself. 

There is in New York an Association for the Im- 
provement of the Condition of the Poor which, in 1911, 
was teaching 50,000 "little mothers" how to cook 
while their parents are away working. One of its main 
objects is to show the families how to economize intelli- 
gently. The fact that so many children as well as 
adults in our cities are so undernourished and so liable 
to disease is largely due to the spending of money on 
foolish, unnutritious, or harmful things. By simply 
substituting cereals and soups for their poisonous tea 



FUTURE OF COOKING 185 

and soggy cake, thousands of suffering families can be 
rescued. The Little Mothers even get some simple 
notions as to the chemistry of food and the advisability 
of not having too much of one kind, as the following, 
from the New York "Evening Post," shows: 

"Girls," said Mrs. Burns to a group of small cooks one day, 
"I am going to give a luncheon, and this is what I am going to 
have: bean soup, pot roast, canned corn, white potatoes, and 
rice pudding. Do you think that will make a nice luncheon?" 
Up came a small hand. "Well, what is it?" asked Mrs. Burns. 
"Too much starch," said the solemn cook. 

A book will doubtless be written some day showing 
by vivid illustrations how many of the problems of 
charity, — crime, poverty, and the prevention of dis- 
ease and intemperance — can be solved by attention to 
rational cooking. 

Ignorant feeding kills thousands of infants every 
month the country over. It is therefore a crime not to 
include food and feeding in the subjects of study in 
schools — all the more as most girls get no instruction 
whatever after they leave school at fourteen. 

There will be fewer complaints about high prices 
when all girls are taught not only how to prepare a 
meal but how to buy food knowingly. As the New 
York "World" has forcibly remarked: "If women 
would pay half as much attention to the fluctuating 
prices of food as they pay to the prices of dress goods, 
— or as the men pay to the stock-ticker — and shop half 



186 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

as assiduously for the one as they do for the other, 
one of the worst phases of the high-cost-of-living prob- 
lem would be met at the start." 

It is almost startling to find that the schooling of 
boys and girls in domestic science works the miracle of 
solving the important problem of how to keep boys and 
girls on the farm. 

Professor Benson of the Department of Agriculture 
relates how, in 1907, he asked the teachers of thirty- 
four schools in Iowa how many of the boys and girls 
expected to remain on the farm when grown up. The 
answers were most discouraging. Provision was then 
made for giving up-to-date instruction in scientific 
farming to the boys and in rational household manage- 
ment to the girls. Three years later account was again 
taken, and it was found that whereas in 1907 all but 
1 1 out of 174 girls wanted to leave the farm, in 1910, 
after being educated, only 17 out of 178 girls persisted 
in going to the city. 

Progress in America is being greatly accelerated by 
the various women's clubs which are working in the 
interest of the food question. Also, by "Good House- 
keeping," "The Ladies' Home Journal," "The Wo- 
man's Home Companion," "The Housekeeper," and a 
host of other magazines, which monthly publish not 
only columns of recipes but helpful articles of all sorts 
bearing on household science and management. 

All things considered the outlook seems bright. 



FUTURE OF COOKING 187 

Characteristically American are the free lectures on 
cooking, with demonstrations, given in some of our 
large department stores. Good is also done by the 
booklets enclosed in many packages of food telling the 
purchaser of various ways of cooking it, alone or in 
diverse combinations. Surely, we are on the way to 
becoming a gastronomic nation! 

TEACHING THE ART OF EATING. 

It is not enough that girls and boys at school 
should be taught to cook; they should also learn how 
to eat. 

Few learn this at home. They are usually taught 
table etiquette: that they must eat silently, and not 
take soup off the end of a spoon (though that is the 
only rational way of doing it) or put the knife into the 
mouth ; but the infinitely more important art of masti- 
cation is entirely ignored. 

The art of eating is a branch of physiology and 
should be taught in all schools by experts, the earlier the 
better. If it were thus taught the next generation of 
mothers and fathers would know that it is a crime to let 
their children swallow food, particularly milk and 
cereals and vegetables, before it has been kept for a 
while in the mouth to be mixed with saliva and thus 
made digestible. 

Children (and most adults, too,) are like animals: 
give them something good to eat and they gulp it down 



188 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

eagerly and then look around for more to stuff into 
their unfortunate stomachs. 

When I was a boy, a story in one of the readers, 
entitled "The Stomach's Complaint," made an indeli- 
ble impression on my mind, and saved me many hours 
of the distress caused by overeating, eating too fast, or 
eating or drinking things too hot or too cold. 

It should be indelibly impressed on all school chil- 
dren that gluttony is a vice which defeats its own end, 
and that by eating very slowly much more pleasure can 
be got from one mouthful than by bolting a whole 
plateful. 

One stick of candy can be made to yield more "linked 
sweetness long-drawn-out" than a dozen sticks as 
usually devoured. Moreover, one stick will not cause 
hours of discomfort as the dozen sticks surely will ; and, 
in addition, it will cost much less, thus leaving plenty 
of money to spend on other things. Surely this argu- 
ment must appeal to all children who have brains 
enough to be worth schooling. 

Every child should also be told over and over again, 
till the habit is formed, that the pleasure derived from 
candy and cake and all food can be vastly increased 
and intensified by consciously breathing out through 
the nose while eating (as explained on pages 62-3) 
and that this will be a further protection from indiges- 
tion. 

If these truths were firmly impressed on all child 



FUTURE OF COOKING 189 

minds, two-thirds of the minor ills of mankind would 
disappear in two generations, and most of the major 
maladies also; for let me say it once more, the stomach 
is the source of most preventable diseases. 

REAL EPICURISM IS ECONOMICAL. 

The future of cooking and eating lies in the hands of 
millions of boys and girls now in our schools. 

It should be made clear to them how important it is 
to their welfare to be real epicures, — that is, persons 
who never eat too much, who select their food with a 
fastidious taste, and refuse to eat any that has no 
Flavor, or a wrong Flavor. 

Were all of us, or most of us, epicures, what a change 
our markets would undergo ! How the chemically de- 
natured foods, the tainted cold-storage fowls, the 
drugged, soggy bread, the tasteless, frozen butchers' 
meats, would be swept away, together with frozen, un- 
palatable fish, wilted vegetables, unclean milk, unripe 
and decayed fruits, all of them the daity source of dis- 
comforts and disease (often including ptomaine poison- 
ing) to thousands. 

We must become a nation of epicures. To be sure, 
were we all as fastidious as gourmets are, only the best 
foods would be tolerated in the markets, and these cost 
more than the inferior grades. But that will not worry 
any one who bears in mind the three cardinal principles 



igo FOOD AND FLAVOR 

of gastronomy which I am trying to emphasize in this 
book: 

I. The food from which we chiefly derive our nour- 
ishment is for the most part cheap. 

II. We need more or less expensive flavor in food 
to make it appetizing and digestible; but, fortunately, 

III. We need very little of the savory material to 
flavor a bountiful meal. 

Were we a nation of epicures, making daily practical 
application of these three cardinal principles of culinary 
knowledge, we could easily, though getting always the 
best material, live much more cheaply than we do now. 

Count Rumford, in a report on dietary experiments 
made by him in behalf of the Bavarian Government 
with its army, dwelt particularly on the fact, demon- 
strated by these trials, that much more depends on the 
art and skill of the cook than on the sums laid out in the 
market. 

The brain is mightier than the purse. With brains 
in the kitchen you can live better on two or three thou- 
sand a year than on ten times that sum without brains. 

To solve the high-cost-of-food problem we should 
therefore above all things labor to get educated cooks 
into our kitchens. 

Educated cooks can save us money. The more they 
save us, the more we can afford to pay them; and the 
more we pay, the easier will it become to persuade 
young women and men to become trained cooks. 



FUTURE OF COOKING 191 

Let us, therefore, with all our might and main en- 
deavor to make the culinary art and science an honored 
profession, to which any one may feel proud to belong. 

Fortunately, apart from all the things just consid- 
ered which make for the popularity of cooking as a pro- 
fession, there are others of the utmost importance which 
must now be dwelt on. 

In most hesitating minds one of the chief objections 
to cooking as at present practised is the drudgery it 
involves. This drudgery is now being eliminated and 
will in a decade or two be reduced to a minimum. 

FIRELESS COOKERS. 

While President Tylor of the British Anthropologi- 
cal Institute was doubtless right in holding the opinion 
(already referred to) that cookery has done more than 
any other art to help mankind in its progress from sav- 
agery to civilization, it is odd that the latest and 
socially, as well as gastronomically, most important 
phase of this art takes us back to practices similar to 
those of primitive man. When Darwin, in his voyage 
round the world, tarried in Tahiti, his native guides on 
a trip to the interior prepared for him a meal which he 
greatly enjoyed. It consisted of pieces of beef, fish, 
and bananas, wrapped in large leaves and placed 
between hot stones, which were then covered with earth 
to keep in the heat. In about a quarter of an hour the 
viands were "most deliciously cooked." 



192 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

One who has never had the good luck to taste, at a 
New England picnic, beans baked in the ground really 
does not know beans, though his home be in Boston. 
Nor does any one know the epicurean possibilities in- 
herent in sea-food unless he has attended a shore clam- 
bake, at which lobsters, clams, and fish, just out of the 
water and wrapped in layers of seaweed, were cooked 
over heated stones, the whole being covered with more 
seaweed to prevent the escape of the heat and the 
flavors. 

In these customs we have a survival of the primitive 
method of cooking praised by Darwin and numerous 
explorers and missionaries. Many of the benighted 
dwellers in our cities have never even heard of them; 
but within the last few years thousands of our kitchens 
have been provided with an apparatus which combines 
the advantages of Tahitian cooking and Rhode Island 
clam-bakes with modern conveniences — the cooking- 
boxes, or fireless cookers, which many rival manufac- 
turers are now turning out by wholesale, and which are 
destined, in combination with gas and electricity, to 
bring about within the next ten years a domestic revo- 
lution so complete and far-reaching that future his- 
torians, in summing up the great achievements of the 
first quarter of the twentieth century, will probably 
name as the three most important ones wireless telegra- 
phy, aviation, and fireless cookery. 

Even in this rich country, only one family in ten can 







Fireless cookery in Hawaii 



194 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

afford to hire a cook, and in the far West such a person 
is seldom obtainable at any price. Now, by the fireless 
cooker all women who have to prepare their own meals 
are fast being emancipated from the hot-stove slavery, 
which is particularly cruel in our sultry summers. It 
makes it possible for them to cook breakfast, luncheon, 
and dinner at the same time, in perhaps an hour, leaving 
the rest of the day free for other work. All they have 
to do is to heat the meat, vegetables, cereals, or other 
viands on the stove for some minutes (varying with dif- 
ferent foods), and then put them into the air-tight box, 
which, being lined with non-conducting substances, 
cooks them thoroughly, retaining all their flavors, keep- 
ing them hot for six hours, and warm for five or six 
longer. 

There is a tradition among mistresses that cooks 
resent innovations in the kitchen; but no domestic 
helper will ever balk at a box which eliminates so much 
of the kitchen drudgery. 

The fireless cooker will therefore go far toward solv- 
ing the most difficult of all domestic problems — that of 
getting some one to help us in our kitchens. 

It is strange that this important service for simplify- 
ing cooking should have had to wait till the twentieth 
century for its general adoption. Its principle was 
known to the ancient Hebrews. Charles XII got on 
the trail when he cooked a fat hen while on the march 
by inserting within it a piece of hot steel, the whole 



FUTURE OF COOKING 195 

being placed in a tin box which was wrapped in a 
woolen cloth and strapped on a soldier's back. 

It was in the far North that the possibilities of this 
procedure were first appreciated in modern times. The 
general attention of Europe was directed at the Paris 
Exposition of 1867 to what was called the "Norwegian 
automatic kitchen" — a box in which food that had been 
heated to boiling point for a few minutes continued to 
cook slowly till done. 

One would have supposed that such a wonderful 
saver of fuel, time, and trouble must have been adopted 
universally within a few years, all the more as any one 
could construct his own cooker out of an ordinary box 
lined with felt, hay, paper, sawdust, or some other poor 
conductor of heat. But years passed and little was 
done until some enthusiasts, prominent among whom 
was the Grand Duchess of Baden, took up the propa- 
ganda. 

Then came the era of auto pianos and automobiles 
and auto everything. The automatic cooker was no 
longer a solitary voice crying in the wilderness. The 
manufacturers took it up, and now, especially in the 
United States, thousands are sold every day. 

Already there are nearly as many "makes" of them as 
there are of pianos or automobiles, each claiming special 
advantages over all others. With the best of them, 
boiling, steaming, broiling, baking, frying, roasting — 
everything, except crisping and toasting — can be done 



196 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

with satisfactory results. Soups and stews, in partic- 
ular, which require hours of slow cooking at moderate 
heat, come out of these cookers with a delicious flavor. 

From the gastronomic and dietetic points of view 
the most important of all the claims made for the fire- 
less cooker is that the food flavors previously dissipated 
through the whole house as "kitchen odors" are retained 
in the meats and vegetables, making them exceptionally 
savory and appetizing. 

It is needless to say that these cookers are of no use 
for broiling or frying steaks, chops, bacon, ham, sau- 
sages, or griddle cakes, which require only a few 
minutes to cook and must be crisp to be enjoyable. 

Nor will the presence of a cooker make it any the 
less necessary for the mistress or the professional cook 
to thoroughly understand the culinary art. They must 
know about meats, and cereals, and vegetables, and 
flavors, and their combinations and extension, to which 
attention has been called. It is simply, in all house- 
holds, valuable because it preserves flavors, eliminates 
the danger of burning or overcooking, reduces the cost 
of fuel by three-fourths or more, makes it easier to 
wash the pots and in other ways saves no end of 
drudgery; while for those who have to do their own 
cooking its advantages in giving leisure for other work, 
or diversions while the cooking goes on, are incalcu- 
lable. The best of all wedding presents is a fireless 
cooker. 



FUTURE OF COOKING 197 

Automobilists and excursionists in general are find- 
ing these boxes a great convenience. They have also 
been used in the army. 

Many women whose work is away from home hardly 
have even as much time to spare as is needed for start- 
ing a meal in the cooker. It is likely that restaurant- 
keepers and other caterers will be more and more called 
upon to prepare specially ordered meals for such cases 
and send them in the heat-retaining boxes in which they 
were made. Expert cooks, in all probability, will go 
from house to house to start the cookers. 

PRIVATE VERSUS COMMUNITY KITCHENS. 

There is a future here for various new kinds of cul- 
inary work. But for one kind, it is to be hoped, there 
is no future, and that is the community kitchen — a 
single kitchen for a number of families. This plan has 
been tried in various countries, always without success. 
Berlin had its "Einkuchenhaus" — for a time. The 
New York "Independent" of March 6, 1912, contains 
an account of a similar experiment in America. A 
dozen women presided in succession with invariably 
disastrous results. 

It is impossible in such a case to suit the taste and 
purse of every family. In a large restaurant it is pos- 
sible to cater to every patron's wishes, but where there 
are half-a-dozen or a dozen families clubbed together, 
some are willing to pay for fresh eggs and poultry and 



198 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

unsalted butter, for example, while others would prefer 
to save the money and live on storage eggs and poultry, 
salted butter, wilted or canned vegetables, and so on. 
There is sure to be constant squabbling; troubles arise 
from feeing, bribing, and a hundred other sources. 
No ; most of us want to be able to order our own meats, 
vegetables and fruits, and have them cooked and served 
as we like them. 

"It was the fashion of forty years ago," wrote E. P. 
Powell in 1904, "for progressive economists to discuss 
a reform village, built in squares, one house on each 
corner, and a community boarding-hall and kitchen in 
the center of each square. Some experiments were 
made along such lines, but they fell to pieces over the 
table question. It is not easy for four families to agree 
on a menu three times a day, and on the qualities of the 
cooking. As a rule every woman must be mistress of 
her own kitchen." 

The German delicatessen store (now acclimated in 
all our cities) with its cooked cold meats, pickles, 
cheeses, and diverse fancy groceries, is likely to be the 
nearest approach to a community kitchen (nearly every 
block has one) that the future will know; and the deli- 
catessen store is only an appendix to the private kitchen. 

Nothing could be more ridiculous than the wails of 
certain writers over the "waste of time" in having the 
cooking done separately for each family. There are 
plenty of persons in search of profitable employment 



FUTURE OF COOKING 199 

to supply the demand; and surely, it is infinitely more 
human, more intellectual, more enjoyable to practise 
the noble and useful art of cooking than to be merely 
one cog in a huge machine for making shoes or garments, 
or cigarettes, as are hundreds of thousands of factory 
workers, most of whom could lead much happier and 
more elevated lives if they were cooks. 

"The gourmet distrusts dishes provided by pastry 
cooks and caterers," wrote the late Theodore Child; and 
this is another of the many reasons why every family 
that can afford it should have its own cook. I have 
never yet eaten ice cream, even in the most expensive 
places, as rich and luscious as the cream we make at 
home. Excellent jams and jellies are now for sale in 
the markets; but in your own kitchen you and your 
helpers can make jams and jellies, and preserves that 
are better still — made of material you have seen, and 
sweetened, or otherwise seasoned, to your individual 
taste. 

The word home-made is still the synonym of gas- 
tronomic excellence. When a dealer wants to specially 
commend his offerings, he labels or advertises them as 
"home-made." 

Owing partly to the present difficulty of getting 
good cooks, and partly to the selfish disinclination of 
too many American women to do as much at home for 
their husband or father as the husband or father does 
for them in the office, thousands of homes have been 



200 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

abandoned in favor of apartment hotels. How these 
families can endure the insipid, monotonous, unap- 
petizing meals served in these (for the most part ex- 
pensive) places, is to me incomprehensible. 

A reaction will come in favor of private kitchens, 
and it will be greatly accelerated by the latest improve- 
ments, now to be considered. 

SCIENTIFIC ELECTRIC COOKING. 

In the average household the use of a cooking box 
does not do away entirely with the smoke, soot, heat, 
ashes, and kitchen odors, because of the need of heating 
the food on a stove for five minutes to half an hour 
before it is put into the air-tight box. The use of gas- 
stoves does away with most of these nuisances, while 
electricity abolishes them altogether, besides removing 
the danger of fire, keeping the air clean and cool, and 
enabling one to cook in any part of the house at any 
desired minute. 

Electric cooking is still in its infancy, but the child 
is growing rapidly. At the Chicago Exposition of 
1893 utensils were shown in considerable variety — 
chafing-dishes, stew-pans, coffee-pots, teapots, broilers, 
griddles, etc. Since that time hundreds of thousands 
of dollars have been spent in devising improvements, 
and at the electric exhibition in New York in 1911 the 
cooking-utensils were so prominent and boasted so many 
improvements that it seemed as though the time had 



FUTURE OF COOKING 201 

come for their general introduction into homes and 
hotels. 

The United States Government has taken the lead 
by recommending electric ranges for future use on 
battleships, after experiments had been made showing 
that the change would result in greater economy of 
time, space, and money, not to speak of cleanliness, or 
of the better quality of the cooked food, because of 
the uniform distribution of the heat. 

For home use, electricity is still in most localities 
comparatively expensive, but it will be less so when 
it comes into more general use. If the electric com- 
panies would more frequently follow the example of 
the gas companies in renting cooking-ranges, it would 
be a great stride forward. In England some of the 
companies charge a special low rate for electric cooking, 
because it is done mostly in the day time, when there 
is little demand for the current for lighting purposes. 

But the most radical way to reduce the cost is to 
combine the electric range with the fireless cooker. 
Thousands of families that can not pay for an elec- 
tric current five or six hours a day could easily afford 
one for the fifteen minutes necessary for heating the 
food before it is put into the box, besides the few 
minutes needed for crisping roasts, brewing coffee, or 
toasting bread. 

In 1911, fancying myself a prophet of great things 
to happen, I wrote: "It is quite likely that the electric 



202 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

range can be so constructed in part that no separate 
cooking-box will be needed ; and then the culinary mil- 
lennium." 

The "Edison Monthly" reprinted my remarks and in 
an editorial promptly informed me that what I had 
voiced as a mere possibility for the future was already 
a fact : that electric fireless cookers had been put out by 
several manufacturers more than a year before my 
article appeared. It was a pleasant surprise to find 
that this was literally true; that my imagined "mil- 
lennium cookers" were actually in the market. 

In Chicago, on September 15, 1910, the following 
menu was served to nineteen persons in an electric shop : 

Consomme Julienne 

Radishes Olives Celery 

Prime Roast Beef 

Mashed Potatoes Lima Beans 

Combination Salad 

Fresh Peach Short Cake 

Coffee 

This meal was cooked in two hours; and by using 
high heat only so long as necessary (on the "cooker" 
principle) and then turning down the electric current 
the cost was made as low as only a trifle over a cent and 
a quarter per person. 

For dishes requiring only a short time to prepare, the 
following details have been given: 

"A toaster can be used for fifteen minutes at a cost 



FUTURE OF COOKING 203 

of 1% cents; fried oysters with bacon, prepared in the 
blazer of an electric stove consumes 2 cents' worth of 
current; to prepare creamed oysters costs if cents; 
finnan haddie, 2 cents; lobster a la Newburg, 2 cents; 
chicken and mushrooms, 2 J cents; spring chicken, 2 J 
cents; lamb chops with vegetables, 2| cents; sweet- 
breads, l\ cents; plain omelet, if cents; cheese omelet, 
2 cents; Spanish omelet, l\ cents. To boil eggs the 
water-cup may be used on the dining-room table and 
one cup of water can be boiled for i| cents; Welsh 
rarebit may be made for 1 J cents ; griddle cakes baked 
on the electric stove for 2 J cents for lj hours' opera- 
tion." 

West London in the autumn of 1912 had two pri- 
vate restaurants in which all the cooking was done by 
electricity, 1,200 meals being provided daily for the 
staff of a large establishment. 

In the London "Daily Mail" of November 2, 1912, 
the following appeared : 

An interesting test made in a small middle-class home gives 
the entire cost of the day's cooking at 6d. Beginning first thing 
in the morning, the time and amount of electricity used were 
carefully noted. For early morning tea the boiler or kettle 
of the electric range boiled rather more than two pints of water 
in four minutes, the electricity used equaling less than one-fifth 
of a penny. The whole cooking of the breakfast took ten min- 
utes, the electricity used being less than 7-ioth of a unit, equal- 
ing an expenditure of just under fd. The menu was five 
rashers of bacon and toast cooked on the grill in less than seven 



204 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

minutes, five eggs boiled on a ring, and coffee made from the 
rapid boiler. 

The midday meat meal consisted of an 8 lb. joint, potatoes, 
and other vegetables for five people, milk pudding, and coffee. 
The electric oven retains the heat so well that the pudding was 
placed in the oven after the joint was removed and the electric- 
ity switched off, the retained heat being sufficient to cook it; 
2| units, or 2;fd., cooked this meal. 

Tea time cost id. for tea, hot grill cakes, and toast, and sup- 
per with a hot dish id. During the day water was boiled, 
cakes baked, and some soup simmered, at the cost of another 
unit. 

The advance of the electric cooker can be gauged by the 
statement of the electric supply companies, who affirm that 
where they had but six private houses using cookers last Christ- 
mas they have 200 this year; or by the statements of the users, 
who say that they have no desire to return to old methods. 
Many big business houses have complete electric installations in 
their kitchens. 

Electricity in the kitchen will make cooking an exact 
science. No longer will diners be obliged to rely on 
the cook's "instinct" or "knack," which too often fail. 
With the electric appliances the temperature can be 
controlled to a degree, and special switches permit fast, 
medium, or slow rates of cooking. 

From the economic point of view the most satis- 
factory electric ranges are of course those in which the 
current shuts off automatically, while the dinner con- 
tinues to cook with no further expense, the stove taking 
on the fireless cooker principle. 

Further advantages claimed for electric cooking are 



FUTURE OF COOKING 205 

that the loss of weight in meat while cooking is greatly 
reduced, and that the results obtained by it have the 
advantages of the paper-bag cooking, which has come 
so much into use within a few years because of its 
cleanliness and its value in preserving the food flavors 
which in ordinary cooking are so lamentably dissi- 
pated. 

Electric chafing dishes, toasters of various kinds, 
coffee percolators and tea kettles, waffle irons, boilers, 
stew and frying pans, are now at the service of all who 
have electricity in the house. Nor is this all. There 
are, besides, bread and cake mixers, coffee grinders, 
food choppers, ice cream freezers, egg beaters, vegeta- 
ble slicers, food graters, apple peelers, knife sharpeners 
and polishers — all of them run by the electric current. 

Thus we see that the housewife and the cook of the 
future, instead of feeling like a drudge in a smoky, 
smelly, overheated kitchen, will have the dignity of 
workers in a cool, clean laboratory for the scientific 
preparation of savory food and the abolition of dys- 
pepsia. 

The editor of the electric magazine referred to indi- 
cates another important result of this agreeable trans- 
formation of the kitchen. Caste feeling is largely a 
matter of dress. "The poorest stenographer is a lady, 
because, in so far as her stipend permits, she dresses like 
a lady. Accordingly, she looks down upon the cook 
drawing the same wages and 'keep,' because the cook 



206 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

works with red face and streaming hair over a hot 
stove." But in the electric kitchen of the future the 
cook will be able to be as neatly dressed as if she were 
presiding over a glove counter; and this will act as a 
great social leveler. 

The cook's work will also be lightened by the grow- 
ing practice of preparing food and drink on the dining- 
room table, to have it hot, and with the flavor at its best. 
The choicest coffee, for instance, is usually spoiled by 
being prepared carelessly in the kitchen. Epicures 
make their own coffee and tea; they are also able now 
to have better toast than ever comes from the kitchen 
by making it on the table in an electric toaster. Eggs 
and bacon, taken sizzling from the electric frying stove 
and eaten out of the pan, have a richness of flavor that 
will astonish those who have never tried them this way; 
and the same is true of many other breakfast and lunch 
dishes. 

IMPORTANCE OF VARIETY IN FOODS. 

It is likely that in the development of electric cook- 
ing inventive America will lead Europe. But in other 
respects the American cooking of the future will have 
to borrow many useful hints from the older and more 
experienced nations of Europe. 

We need, especially, greater variety in our dietary. 
The following chapters will endeavor to indicate the 
best ways of multiplying our pleasures of the table. 



FUTURE OF COOKING 207 

Before beginning with France, which has the largest 
number of lessons to teach, let us briefly consider the 
need of variety. 

King Philip V of Spain engaged Farinelli, the most 
famous vocalist of his time, to sing four songs for him, 
without change of any kind, every evening for ten 
years. He was not in his right mind, "as a matter of 
course," one feels tempted to add, and yet are there not 
at this day, and in this country, many thousands of 
persons whose musical pabulum consists entirely of half 
a dozen tunes, which they sing, hum, and whistle dec- 
ade after decade 1 ? For them the countless inspirations 
of genius given to the world in the last three centuries 
do not exist at all. And how much enjoyment they 
thus miss ! 

Vastly more surprising, since everybody eats, is the 
fact that the majority of persons are equally ignorant 
of the countless delicacies invented by ingenious cooks 
of the past and present. What Sir Henry Thompson 
wrote, more than a quarter of a century ago, regarding 
the average Englishman is quite as true to this day of 
the average American: "He cares more for quantity 
than quality, desires little variety, and regards as im- 
pertinent an innovation in the shape of a new aliment, 
expecting the same food at the same hour daily." 

Breeders of fine animals have long since discovered 
that nothing is so conducive to health and other de- 
sirable qualities as variety in the food given. 



2o8 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

A monotonous diet soon palls on the appetite, fails 
to stimulate the digestive organs, and the result is dys- 
pepsia, loss of pleasure, energy, and earning power, and 
the shortening of life. Think of the pallid victims of 
the everlasting hog and hominy in the South ! "Hasty 
pudding and milk," as Artemus Ward sagely observed, 
"are a harmless diet if eaten moderately, but if you eat 
it incessantly for six consecutive weeks, it will produce 
instant death." 

At a conference on diet in schools held in London, all 
the speakers agreed that "monotony is the most fatal 
thing to digestion in both young and old, and that the 
knowledge that such and such a dish must inevitably 
come on Monday and such and such another on Tues- 
day, is destructive beforehand to appetite which is es- 
sential to good digestion and nutrition." 

When the average American or Englishman travels, 
he is glad to see new cities, new scenery, new costumes 
and new faces; but he is comically indignant if 
he cannot get the same food he has always had at 
home. It would be much better for him if he could be 
made to understand that Cowper's maxim, "Variety 's 
the very spice of life," applies to diet as much as to any- 
thing. Every country has something to give and teach 
us regarding the pleasures of the table. No other land 
yields such a lavish and varied supply of raw material 
as the United States, and all we need in order to be- 
come the leading gastronomic nation is to wake up to 



FUTURE OF COOKING 209 

the importance of good and varied cooking and rational 
eating, and to learn all we can from nations famed for 
their culinary art. 

The methods of obtaining the diverse national food 
flavors can often be studied without traveling abroad, 
since in our cities we have cooks and restaurants of 
nearly every land under the sun. In New York one 
can make a gastronomic trip of the world. 



w^% 




**'^^ii. 



mM 



vii 

FRENCH SUPREMACY 

GRUMBLER might ask "What 's 
the use trying to learn new things 
from foreigners when so many of 
our families can hardly afford to 
buy the ordinary meats and vege- 
tables for any kind of meal?" 
But it is precisely because food- 
stuffs are becoming expensive that we ought to look to 
the older and less extravagant nations of Europe for 
guidance. Our Government has been commendably 
alert in this matter, doing a most useful service by issu- 
ing Farmers' Bulletin 391, which, as previously pointed 
out, shows how, by expert cooking, the cheaper cuts of 
meat may be made to yield more nutrition as well as 




FRENCH SUPREMACY 211 

more appetizing flavor than the choicest cuts as at 
present prepared in American households. 

KITCHEN ALCHEMY. 

It is to France chiefly that the world owes this in- 
valuable lesson, which gives to those of moderate means 
many of the advantages of the well-to-do. In that 
country the humblest peasant family enjoys palatable 
meals because the cook is an alchemist who knows how 
to transmute the baser metals into silver and gold. 

The secret of this alchemy lies in the use of the stock- 
pot, which saves for the table a vast amount of animal 
and vegetable nutriment and flavor such as in American 
cities and on American farms are wickedly wasted. 

It is no consolation to know that the British are 
almost if not quite as foolishly wasteful as we are. 
But they are beginning to learn of the French. Sir 
Henry Thompson's "Food and Feeding" sounded a 
note which is being listened to more and more atten- 
tively. A more recent writer comments instructively 
on "French Thrift and British Waste" : 

"In a French household such a thing as waste is 
almost unknown. The positive waste of odds and 
ends in this country is simply appalling. Look not 
only under the vegetable stalls in our streets, but also 
in almost all dustbins, and you will see as much as, if 
it had been kept clean, might have given health literally 
to thousands of people. 



212 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

"Besides the outside leaves of cabbages and cauli- 
flowers, and the outside layers of onion skin, there are 
the peelings of potatoes, turnips, carrots, and apples, 
and the tops of beet-roots and turnips, and the large 
outside sticks of celery. In France and other countries 
these go, as a matter of course, into the stock-pot. In 
England the stock-pot is scarcely used at all among the 
poorer people. It is not too much to affirm that half 
a dozen changes in the ways of English poor people, in- 
cluding first and foremost the use of the stock-pot, 
would increase our national prosperity more than our 
social reformers dream of." 

SEVEN HUNDRED SOUPS. 

There are a thousand uses in an intelligently con- 
ducted kitchen for the delicious bouillon in the stock- 
pot, redolent of the flavors of diverse vegetables and 
meats. 

Dumas wrote that the French cuisine owes its su- 
periority to the excellence of its bouillon — the product 
of seven hours of continuous simmering. He knew 
what he was talking about, for he was almost as far 
famed for his knowledge of kitchen lore as for his 
novels; and his "Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine" is 
one of the monumental contributions to the arts of cook- 
ing and eating. 

Another Frenchman, Ferdinand Grandi, wrote a 
book in 1902 entitled "Les 700 Potages, ou l'art de Pre- 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 213 

parer les Soupes, Consommes, Bisques, Purees, Gar- 
bures, Semoules, Legumes, Farineux, Potages de toutes 
Sortes et de tous les Pays." 

Seven hundred soups seems a large order, yet it is 
possible to prepare not only seven hundred but seven 
times seven hundred kinds by combining the juices and 
flavors of diverse meats with those of an endless variety 
of vegetables. That this is not an exaggeration any 
one may convince himself by turning over the pages of 
Baumann's "Meisterwerk der Speisen," which, in its 
2016 pages, indicates the nature of about that num- 
ber of soups. 

It must not be inferred from the foregoing remarks 
about the stockpot that nothing goes into it except 
odds and ends — peelings and tops of vegetables, bruised 
bones, trimmings from joints, scraps of poultry or 
other meat that is left over at table. On the contrary, 
those who can afford it put in chunks of carefully 
chosen meats to enrich the bouillon. 

For making the national French soup known as 'pot- 
au-feu the pieces generally selected are the top round, 
the shoulder, or the ends of ribs. Preparing the pot- 
au-feu is not so simple a matter as it may seem. In 
"L'Art du Bien Manger" we read that the boiling 
must be done slowly and methodically and that the 
vegetables to be used must be fresh : 

"To make an excellent bouillon, cook, preferably in 
an earthenware casserole, or, if that is not available, 



214 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

an iron pot ; put in the meat, the bones, cold water and 
salt. Put the pot on the fire, bring it to the boiling 
point and skim carefully, then after this first skimming 
add a glass of cold water. Let it boil up again and 
skim a second time. When the soup begins again to 
boil slightly slacken the fire, uncover the pot partially 
and let it simmer gently. 

"After three hours' simmering add the vegetables 
and two pepper-corns. Let this go on simmering two 
hours more. Color the liquid with a little caramel 
made from burned sugar. Remove all the fat from 
the bouillon, put it through a fine sieve and pour it 
into the soup tureen in which you have placed thin 
slices of bread which have been browned in the oven. 
The beef from the stock may be served garnished with 
the boiled vegetables. (The use of pepper is a matter 
of taste.) 

"The economical side of the pot-au-feu is to furnish 
soup for two meals. What is left over may be kept 
in an earthenware jar into which it should be poured 
through a fine sieve after it has settled somewhat in 
the soup kettle." 

Dumas, who relied for his culinary directions on 
his friend Vuillemot, of the Tete Noire at St. Cloud, ad- 
vises that only the freshest and juiciest meat should be 
used and that it should not be washed, as that would 
rob it of a portion of its juice. The bones that are 
added should be broken up well with a mallet as that 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 215 

will result in the gelatine being effectually extracted 
from them. "Then we place them in a horsehair bag 
with any scraps of fowl, rabbit, partridge, or roast 
pigeon which may be found in the larder; in fact, the 
remains of yesterday's dinner." 

As I am not writing a cook book, my main object in 
presenting these excerpts is to provide an illustration of 
that use of brains and painstaking care in the kitchen 
which explains French supremacy in matters gastro- 
nomic. 

SAVORY SAUCES. 

The same traits are abundantly manifested in the 
making of sauces. 

While Dumas attributed the culinary superiority of 
the French to their bouillon, George H. Ellwanger, 
who has written an entertaining book on "The Pleas- 
ures of the Table," declares that "the supreme tri- 
umph of the French cuisine consists in its sauces." 

Many of the French gourmets and chefs have held 
the same view, and undoubtedly more inventive skill 
has been shown, and more reputations have been made, 
in the realm of sauces than in any other department of 
the art of cooking. 

Recipes for eighty-one of the best French sauces are 
given in "L'Art du Bien Manger," and two hundred 
and forty-six sauces are described in Charles Ran- 
hofer's "The Epicurean." Perhaps the number of pos- 



216 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

sible sauces is not as large as that of the soups; yet 
there is ample scope still for inventive genius. 

Not only men but cities have been made famous by 
a sauce. In the restaurants of Paris and all over 
Europe, in fact, Rouen duck is often on the bill of 
fare. But as Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis says in 
"The Gourmet's Guide to Europe," "the Rouen duck 
is not any particular breed of duck, though the good 
people of Rouen will probably stone you if you assert 
this. It is simply a roan duck. The rich sauce which 
forms part of the dish was, however, invented at 
Rouen." 

It was with a duck sauce that one of the French 
restaurateurs of our time won fame and fortune. For 
a number of years every American and Englishman in 
Paris who could afford it, went to the Tour d' Argent 
to eat a duck as prepared by Frederic Delair. He used 
two ducks for each order. One of them, well-cooked, 
was for the meat, while the other, quite rare (or under- 
done, as the English say) was put into a silver turnscrew 
and had all its juices — including that of the liver — 
squeezed out. These juices make a sauce which I have 
eaten with enjoyment and impunity; but I have been 
told by a physician at Lyons that some persons are 
made ill by it, owing, apparently, to some injurious 
quality in raw duck-livers. 

Most of the Paris restaurants, now that Frederic is 







The "Tour d' Argent" and Frederic Delair 



218 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

no more, have their silver turnscrew, and they do not 
feel guilty of plagiarism, for Frederic did not really 
originate this trick but adapted it from the practice of 
French peasants who tried to get as much juice as 
possible out of their tough and skinny ducks by smash- 
ing the carcasses with stones. 

Already in the middle ages the saucier, or sauce- 
maker, was the headman in the cuisine of French 
aristocrats. 

The age of Careme (who wrote eloquently and lov- 
ingly about sauces) was, as Ellwanger remarks, "the 
era of quintessences — of the cuisine classique, when 
chemistry contributed new resources, and fish, meats, 
and fowls were distilled, in order to add a heightened 
flavor to the sauces and viands that their etherealized 
essences were to accentuate. One thinks of Lucullus 
and Apicius, and of the 'exceeding odoriferous and 
aromatical vapor' of the ovens of the artist mentioned 
by Montaigne." 

The most common ingredients used to make the 
savory and appetizing French sauces are the yolks of 
eggs (raw or cooked), salt, pepper, mustard, vinegar, 
lemon juice, tomatoes, bouillon, shallots, anchovies, 
onions, garlic, carrots, olive oil, orange rind, truffles, 
cream, mushrooms, pickles, wines, meat extracts, 
cayenne, and diverse aromatic herbs. But the most 
important of all French sauces is melted French 




CAREME 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 219 

butter — not "kitchen butter," but the fresh, fragrant 
product of the creamery. With such butter, and 
'plenty of it, gastronomic miracles can be performed. 

There is a great deal of local Flavor in French 
sauces. Blindfold a Parisian gourmet who knows his 
country, and place before him dishes made after the 
fashions of different provinces, and he will tell you at 
once the name of the town they smack of. 

The coast towns enjoy special advantages in this 
respect, as they can use diverse shellfish and other 
marine creatures peculiar to their region to impart 
special overtones of flavor, so to speak, to their sauces. 

French enthusiasm over sauces reached its climax 
in the exclamation that with sauce Robert a man might 
be pardoned for eating his own grandfather! 

Brillat-Savarin, like many of his countrymen, went 
too far when he declared that "poultry is for cookery 
what canvas is to the painter." 

No doubt, many of the sauces served with poultry in 
French restaurants (each of which has its specialty, as 
it has in the line of fish sauces) are delicious, yet good 
chickens, ducks, and turkeys, not to speak of game 
birds, have flavors of their own which it is a barbarism 
to disguise even with the noblest of sauces — except 
once in a while, for the sake of variety. The way to 
cook any winged creature if you want the most de- 
licious flavor it can yield, is roasting a la broche. 



22o FOOD AND FLAVOR 



PROFITABLE POULES DE BRESSE. 



Of the barbarism just referred to, many Parisian 
restaurants, I regret to say, are habitually guilty. One 
evening, at one of the best of them, I was simply dum- 
founded when a choice poularde, which cost as much 
as the almost extinct canvasback duck does in New 
York, was served with — horribile dictu — a sauce made 
of American canned corn! It was not an attempt to 
cater to the supposed taste of a New Yorker, for it was 
a 'plat du jour, prepared before we arrived and served 
to others. Had I been the host of the occasion instead 
of merely a guest I should have taken the headwaiter 
into a corner and whispered some advice into his ear. 

What aggravated the crime was that it was a poul- 
arde de Bresse that was thus maltreated. 

Many varieties of chickens are raised in France — 
the poule commune^ the race de Houdan, race de la 
Flecke, race de Crevecoeur, race de Barbezieux^ race 
Caussade, etc., besides imported varieties; but the 
noblest of them all is the race de la Bresse. 

The poulet de Bresse is the most highly esteemed of 
all domestic birds that are served not only at French 
dinners, but at the best restaurants and hotels all over 
Europe. It has a richness of flavor that puts it far 
above other fowls — as far as its delicious fragrance 
puts the Gravenstein above all other apples. 

In France the poule de Bresse has long been held in 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 221 

highest esteem. Brillat-Savarin wrote in 1825: "as to 
chickens, the finest are those from Bresse, which are as 
round as an apple." English breeders have recently 
discovered its superior merits. It promises, the Lon- 
don "Telegraph" remarks, to "become very popular in 
the near future, and deservedly so, considering the 
breed's laying and table properties, which have been 
tested for fully a century across the channel. Bresse 
is one of the principal towns in the Aisne district, and 
the breed which bears its name was always cultivated 
for its white flesh, with delicacy of flavor. Poularde 
de Bresse usually fetches a higher price than any other 
fowl in the Paris market." "It behoves our English 
poultry keepers to use every effort to popularize the 
Bresse fowl in this country. The specialist club, 
started some three years since [1909] has already done 
much. . . . Mr. G. H. Caple, of Stanton Prior, 
near Bristol, is honorary secretary, and will give all 
needful information." 

It is to be noted that the Bresse fowl not only "puts 
on flesh in a wonderful way," but has all the other 
qualities most desirable in a farmyard bird. Several 
varieties have flesh as juicy as the Bresse, and almost 
as delicate in flavor, but there is always some trait or 
other that puts them at a disadvantage. The Houdan, 
for instance, is a good bird for the table and a fair 
layer, but it requires too much attention to be generally 
profitable. La Fleche provides a tender morsel but 



222 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

flourishes only in dry regions, and the same is true of 
the Crevecoeur class, which is extremely sensitive to 
humidity. The Belgian Campine puts on good flesh 
but not enough of it. The American Wyandotte and 
the Leghorn are robust, and good layers, but the flesh 
is inferior in flavor. Much better in this respect are 
the Plymouth Rocks, but they are poor layers. The 
Langshans class is good to eat, but does not fatten 
easily, while the Cochins grow too slowly and their 
flesh is mediocre as to flavor. 

The poule de Rresse has none of these flaws. The 
black variety is the hardiest of all chickens, flourish- 
ing in any climate except the extreme north, and on 
any soil, dry or humid. As a layer she is among the 
very best, often winning prizes for size and number 
of eggs. Though prolific she is not too eager to set, 
but when she does hatch, she makes a devoted mother. 
Best of all, the flesh is tender and juicy, there is plenty 
of it, and in flavor it is beyond compare. 

Truly, the poule de Bresse is the chicken for the 
farm and the market — "c'est la veritable poule de 
rapport, celle qui convient a la ferme," as a French 
noted aviculteur remarks. 1 

To my great surprise, in looking over Farmers' Bul- 

1 La Poule. Production Intensive des Oeufs. Par A. Linard, Paris: 
S. Bornemann. See also the same author's "La Poule. Production In- 
tensive de la Chair" ; and "Les Poules, Poulets et Chapons." Par 
Francois Rontillet, Paris: Le Bailly — for information as to the best 
French ways of feeding, housing, caponizing, and fattening fowls. 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 223 

letin No. 51 (1907) entitled "Standard Varieties of 
Chickens," I found no mention of the poule de Bresse in 
this forty-six-page document, which begins with the 
statement that there are 104 standard and a large num- 
ber of nonstandard varieties of chickens raised in this 
country. Can we afford to be so far behind the French 
— and the English? 

Ungastronomic America confronts us in the state- 
ment, in Bulletin 51, that although as a table fowl the 
Leghorn is only "fairly good," it "holds the same place 
among poultry that the Jersey holds among cattle. 
The question of profit in poultry has been decided in 
favor of the egg-producing breeds." 

In a country in which most poultry is spoiled by 
being put into cold storage undrawn, it is no wonder 
that the laying capacity of a fowl should alone be 
deemed worth considering; for, under these conditions, 
as previously pointed out, breed and feed are of no 
consequence so far as flavor is concerned. But the 
time is coming when the American consumer will im- 
peratively demand Flavor in Food; and bountiful har- 
vests will be reaped by farmers who look ahead now 
and stock their poultry yards with an eye to good and 
abundant flesh as well as good and abundant eggs. 
The Bresse race will fill the whole bill. It is best 
for eggs, best for the table. A Bresse hen will virtually 
hatch two chicks from one egg. 



224 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

DIGESTIVE VALUE OF SOUR SALADS. 

Salad goes with chicken as the piano goes with a 
song. To eat lettuce with the cheese, as many Eng- 
lishmen and not a few Americans do, is preposterously 
absurd. As for putting sugar on lettuce I cannot 
write down my opinion, for it is not fit for print. 
Salad cries for vinegar, as a parched plant cries for 
rain. 

Vinegar is not only agreeable to the senses of taste 
and smell, and most refreshing, especially in summer, 
but it plays a very important role in the digestion of 
food. 

It has been said that God sent us our food and the 
devil our cooks. This is not always the case, but the 
devil certainly inspired the man who taught that, in 
mixing a salad dressing, the vinegar should be added 
by a miser. 

This maxim, widely accepted, has done a great deal 
of harm, not only in spoiling many millions of dishes 
for the palate, but in preventing salads from heading 
off dyspepsia, with all its evil consequences. 

Many physicians have deplored the insufficiency of 
fat in the average American's diet. Fat is especially 
important as a source of energy, and also because fat 
meat is more savory and appetizing than lean meat. 
Furthermore, physiologists have shown by laboratory 
experiments that the presence of fat in meat or vegeta- 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 225 

ble dishes makes them yield a larger degree of nutri- 
ment (apart from what it contributes itself). 

Professor John C. Olsen of the Brooklyn Polytechnic 
Institute says that "fats and oils furnish fully half 
the energy obtained by human beings from their food. 
Fats also exert a beneficial influence on the digestive 
process, so that a diet without fat is dry and unpalata- 
ble." 

The only drawback is that fat makes the food "rich" 
and difficult of digestion — unless the cook is an artist. 

This is why so many persons exclude it from their 
dietary, at the cost of energy in men and the beauty of 
health in women. 

It is here that salad comes to the rescue. The 
vinegar in it, if genuine, excites by its fragrance and 
acidity the digestive glands not only in the mouth and 
the stomach, but in the pancreas, which acts on all the 
constituents of food, particularly the fats. 

The pancreas is a gland near the stomach ; it secretes 
the juice known as pancreatic and pours it into the 
duodenum, or small intestine, which — some ten or fif- 
teen feet in length, is folded about it. To prevent 
intestinal indigestion there must be an abundant flow 
of pancreatic juice, and this flow is stimulated by the 
vinegar in the salad we eat and other acids in our food. 

On this point the greatest living authority on the sub- 
ject, Professor Pawlow, makes the following extremely 
important remarks: 



226 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

. an acid reaction is not only necessary for 
an efficient action of the peptic ferment, but is at the 
same time the strongest excitant of the pancreatic 
gland. It is even conceivable that the -whole diges- 
tion may depend upon the stimulating properties of 
acids, since the pancreatic juice exerts a ferment action 
upon all the constituents of the food. In this way 
acids may either assist digestion in the stomach -where 
too little gastric juice is present, or bring about vicarious 
digestion by the pancreas -where it is -wholly absent. 
It is easy, therefore, to understand -why the Russian 
peasant enjoys his kwas -with bread. The enormous 
quantity of starch which he consumes, either as bread 
or 'porridge, demands a greater activity upon the part 
of the pancreatic gland, and this is directly brought 
about by the acid. Further, in certain affections of the 
stomach, associated with loss of appetite, we make use 
of acids, both from instinct as well as medical direction, 
the explanation being that they excite an increased 
activity of the pancreatic gland, and thus supplement 
the weak action of the stomach. It appears to me that 
a knowledge of the special relations of acids to the 
pancreas ought to be very useful in medicine, since it 
brings the gland — a digestive organ at once so powerful 
and so difficult of access — under the control of the 
physician. 

It is obvious from these disclosures that if every 
American family followed the French custom of eating 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 227 

a sour salad at least once a day there would be very 
much less intestinal indigestion, which is even more 
distressing than indigestion in the stomach. 

It is further obvious that Fletcherizing, or "mouth 
work," alone does not avert indigestion, for saliva has 
no effect on fats. The pancreas takes care of these, 
particularly if aided by acid ingredients in our food. 

Probably no detail of the French menu is therefore 
so important to us as the daily sour salad. 

An astonishingly small number of American families 
know what a delicious and hygienically valuable dish 
salad is with a French dressing of good olive oil and 
pure, fragrant vinegar. 

There is very little nourishment in salad leaves until 
the oil has been added; and the oil is what we need, 
with the vinegar to help digest it. 

The two words I have just italicized explain why so 
many Americans imagine they do not like salads with 
vinegar and oil dressing. Unless the oil is good and 
the vinegar pure and fragrant such a salad does no good 
but may do much harm; and it is seldom that one can 
buy good oil and vinegar in a grocery store. 

Of all the food adulterators none are more rascally 
and abundant than the makers of artificial vinegar. 
Pure vinegars made of cider, wine, or malt can be sold 
at a very good profit to the manufacturer and dealer at 
from ten to twenty cents a quart; but this profit does 
not satisfy the swinish greed of the adulterators and 



228 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

unscrupulous grocers. By using acetic acid, a by- 
product of the distillation of deadly wool-alcohol, they 
can make "vinegar" at a cost of two cents a gallon, or 
90 cents a barrel, which retails at over $20. 

The pure food law covers this case, but the fines in- 
flicted are so trifling compared with the gains, that the 
adulterators regard them in the light of a joke and con- 
tinue their profitable poisoning, though many of them 
have been before the courts two, three, or four times. 
Jail is what their crime calls for. This so-called vin- 
egar is in most cases injurious to the health of those who 
consume it, and by its lack of agreeable fragrance it 
discourages the healthful practice of eating sour salads. 

It is foolish to get vinegar of the nearest corner 
grocer unless you know he is honest. It is best to buy 
it in the sealed bottles of firms which have a national 
or international reputation for fair dealing. 

The same caution should be observed in purchasing 
olive oil. Do not buy it of a grocer who exposes his 
bottles in the show window. If he does not know that 
sunlight spoils the best olive oil, he is not likely to 
know, or care, what the best oil is. 

Among the adulterants used to cheapen olive oil 
small quantities of castor oil, lard oil, fish oil, and even 
petroleum have been found. More frequent are rape- 
seed and poppy-seed oil. Peanut oil is much used, but 
the most frequent adulterant is cotton seed oil, which 
costs only about one-fifth the price of high-grade olive 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 229 

oil and therefore offers great temptation to the dealer. 

Cottonseed oil is not inferior in nutritive value to 
olive oil, and Dr. Wiley assures us that no objection 
can be made to it "from any hygienic or dietetic point 
of view." Of the three million barrels of it produced 
in this country every year, not less than two-thirds are 
consumed as food. It is "perfectly satisfactory," the 
doctor adds "to those who have not acquired a taste for 
olive oil." 

If you like cottonseed oil there is no reason in the 
world why you should not pour it into your salad bowl. 
But if you wish to enjoy the epicurean delights of true 
salads you must train your sense of smell and learn 
to distinguish between fragrant oil and cottonseed 
oil, which, at its worst, has a disagreeable flavor and 
at its best is practically odorless and tasteless. 

It is the fragrance, the Flavor, of olive oil that keeps 
it in the market, boldly defying its cheap rivals. 

A great many Americans who think they do not like 
olive oil know not what real olive oil is. They have 
been fooled by the adulterators. They may have been 
careful to buy bottles labeled "Pure Virgin Olive Oil" ; 
but, as Dr. Wiley says, "this expression upon the label 
has been found in many instances of olive oil highly 
adulterated and belonging to the cheapest grade." 

There are more than a dozen grades of olive oil. It 
varies with the locality it is grown in, the care taken in 
its manufacture, the season, and so on. The first press- 



230 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

ing (virgin oil) is the best; the virgin oil of the month 
of May is finer than any other, and the best oil comes 
from Italy. 

It is worth while to cultivate a "taste" for the finer 
kinds, for they are the most fragrant and digestible. 
Such oil is not only a table delicacy second to none, it 
is also used more and more by doctors for diseases of 
the stomach and other parts of the digestive tract. 
For gall stone it is almost a specific. 

As a cosmetic, nothing equals olive oil. The beauty 
of Spanish and Italian women is owing largely to their 
daily and liberal use of it in salads and cooked foods. 
It improves the complexion and rounds out the lines of 
the form. 

Eating salad is by far the most agreeable way to take 
olive oil. There are persons with whom all acids dis- 
agree; these unfortunates have to do without the fra- 
grant vinegar; but they can easily learn to like salads 
with oil and salt alone. The taste is decidedly worth 
acquiring. 

In making the dressing, oil should by all means be 
applied "by a spendthrift." "Put on as much as you 
think you can afford," I feel tempted to advise; but, 
of course, you can get the best results more cheaply by 
painting each leaf with oil or by thoroughly mixing the 
leaves with it before putting on the vinegar. Always 
make sure that there is no water in the bowl and that 
the leaves are well dried. 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 231 

In hot weather the vinegar should be put on first, 
to make the salad more piquant and refreshing. One 
spoonful of vinegar (pure and fragrant, if you please) 
to every two of oil is not too much. Let the stirring 
be done "by a maniac," according to the old maxim, for 
it is most important. 

Salt is a necessary ingredient, and a trifle of cayenne 
makes the salad more digestible. Black pepper is, to 
some epicures, an unwelcome intruder, though it is 
often used even in Paris restaurants, where I now find 
it necessary to add sans pozvre in ordering a salad. 
Once in a while, for variety's sake, add a little mustard, 
or rub the inside of the big bowl (it must be big, and 
Russian lacquer is the best) with garlic. A few table- 
spoonfuls of meat gravy — particularly chicken gravy 
(from roast or fricassee) give additional richness and 
savor to the dressing. 

If you can get no pure and fragrant vinegar, by all 
means use lemon juice as infinitely better than 
"vinegar" made of acetic acid and water. But if malt, 
wine or cider vinegar is at hand it is preferable to the 
lemon, which does not harmonize so well with oil. 
Lemon is too loud — too self-assertive — like a trombone 
added to a string quartet. 

It is a subtle thing, this gastronomic instrumentation, 
and there are differences of opinion as in matters 
musical. There is nothing better than a glass of 
lemonade — except, perhaps, a glass of limeade; — in 



232 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

very warm weather it is a luxury to suck a lemon like 
an orange. But if a slice of lemon is put in my tea I 
lose the delicate aroma of the leaves, which I am after; 
and so with salads. The fragrance of vinegar is more 
delicate, and does not overpower the fragrance of the 
oil. On the other hand, in making mayonnaise, which 
is also a French dressing, having been invented by the 
Marshal de Richelieu, and which is often used for 
green salads as well as for meat and fish salads, lemon 
is perhaps preferable to vinegar. Apparently the ad- 
dition of the yolks of raw eggs to the other ingredients 
prevents the lemon tone from being too loud. With 
sardines, also, a lemon is all right, because their own 
flavor is not so weak as to be easily routed. 

In remote regions, where pure olive oil cannot be 
obtained, a very fair substitute for French salad dress- 
ing may be provided by following the practice of Bel- 
gians and Germans of putting small cubes of fried 
bacon into the vinegar. Sometimes the vinegar, thus 
oiled, is heated and then poured over the leaves. That 
wilts them but makes a piquant dish for a change. In 
one way or another, have a sour salad with your dinner, 
especially if it includes fat food, for the reasons given. 

ESCAROLE, TOMATOES, ARTICHOKES, ALLIGATOR PEARS. 

In nineteen cases out of twenty the salad served in 
our country is lettuce, and in nine cases out of ten the 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 233 

diner is insulted with huge green leaves fit only for 
boiled greens or the stock-pot. 

Green lettuce is good to eat raw only in its infancy 
(when two or three inches high) or when it has shot up 
higher in a few weeks on very rich, moist soil. Much 
better, however, is head lettuce, with the white inside 
leaves, crisp and succulent. Even those, unfortu- 
nately, are somewhat indigestible to many, unless very 
carefully chewed. 

Those who find lettuce troublesome should by all 
means try the bleached white hearts of the variety of 
endive known as escarole (the French call it scarole). 

Until a few years ago it was very difficult to find 
escarole in any American market, and it is not abun- 
dant now. In the catalogues of seedsmen who give 
several pages to the different varieties of lettuce, esca- 
role is disposed of in four or five lines of small type. 
One catalogue, of the year 1912, referred to it as "un- 
surpassed for salads;" the others made no comment at 
all, or spoke of it as "good for soups or greens." As 
there has been practically no demand for escarole seed, 
it was lucky to be listed at all. 

Some seedsmen, however, when they know of a good 
thing, try to create a demand for it. Prominent 
among those is W. Atlee Burpee, of Philadelphia. To 
him I confided my sorrows over the difficulty of getting 
good escarole — or often any escarole at all. I called 



234 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

attention to the fact that it is, to say the least, equal in 
flavor to the best head lettuce, and much easier to as- 
similate, one member of my household being able to 
eat it by the bowlful, whereas lettuce invariably gives 
her indigestion. 

It is much easier to raise, also, than lettuce, which is 
extremely "cranky" in summer. Even in cool Maine 
lettuce sometimes is wilted by a single hot day, unless 
cared for like a tender hot-house orchid; whereas esca- 
role has as many lives as a cat. I have often, in thin- 
ning out my plants, thrown them away by the dozen, 
to be roasted by the sun ; but if a rain came along in a 
day or two, they revived, took root unaided, and grew 
into healthy plants ! 

A further advantage is that, in rich soil and with 
plenty of water, a single plant will yield two or three 
hearts if those of the outside leaves which are not 
needed for bleaching the center are left on; whereas 
head lettuce is never of the "cut-and-come-again" kind. 

The only trouble with escarole is that it has not been 
educated. Lettuce has been trained by dozens of ex- 
perts, the result being a large number of excellent varie- 
ties, some with heads as solid as cabbages. My ob- 
ject in writing to Mr. Burpee was to persuade him to 
give escarole a "college education" — to teach it how to 
head, and bleach itself, like lettuce. 

He promptly replied that he would get seeds abroad 
of all the different varieties and experiment with them 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 235 

in his Fordhook trial grounds; also, that he would write 
to Luther Burbank and try to get him interested. Un- 
fortunately Mr. Burbank was too busy with other re- 
forms to take up this plant too ; but Mr. Burpee forged 
ahead, and in November, 1912, he sent me copies of 
the notes on the varieties of escarole he had sowed — 
seventeen in all. "One or two or these," he wrote, 
"seemed to be much better than the Broad Leaved 
Batavian, but none of them are really self-folding." 
There seems to be hope in a variety numbered 5131 on 
his schedule, which is thus described: "Foliage pale 
yellowish-green, a robust strong grower, averaging 
twenty inches in diameter, leaves eight inches long by 
four inches in breadth, plain leaved, but slightly 
curved, inner leaves being much, incurved, giving the 
impression of its being an excellent strain for bleach- 
ing." 

Along those lines I have no doubt that a head- 
escarole will be evolved in a few years, and that the 
world will be indebted to Mr. Burpee for one more gas- 
tronomic delicacy as welcome as his improved head- 
lettuces, his limas, his stringless pod beans, and his 
improved melons, cucumbers, squashes, tomatoes, cab- 
bages, and other vegetables. Mr. Burbank wrote to 
me under date of December 18, 1912: "It is so natu- 
ral for escarole to spread flat on the ground, that it will 
take some time and a little pains to make it form a 
head." Mr. Burpee will take the time and the pains. 



236 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

The bitter taste of escarole — a mere trace where the 
plant is well grown — is welcomed by epicures and 
hardly noticed by others. 

The dressing is the same as for lettuce. A combina- 
tion that cannot be too highly commended is tomatoes 
with escarole. This mixture is, I think, my favorite of 
all salads. 

So far as tomatoes are concerned, we have nothing 
to learn from the French. As it is an American plant 
— its original home being Peru — it is proper that 
Americans should have a greater number of varieties 
and improvements than any other country. 

The Germans are only just learning to like tomatoes; 
the English have made more progress in this important 
branch of gastronomic education; the French revel in 
the tomato; and in Italian cookery it is an important in- 
gredient; but in the United States tomato-eating 
amounts to a passion, a frenzy. 

In New York every corner grocery, even in the 
poorer quarters, has its constant supply. Apparently, 
all classes, rich and poor alike, are bound to have their 
tomatoes daily, be their price five cents a pound or 
twenty-five or more. For this astonishing appetite 
there must be good reasons. The tomato, with its del- 
icate acid flavor is unquestionably most wholesome. 
Often I walk a mile to bring home the best speci- 
mens of this grand appetizer I can find; and in my 
vegetable garden the patch most carefully enriched 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 237 

and hoed and watered is that where the tomato 
grows. 

To get it at its best you must pick it off the vine and 
eat it on the spot, without any condiment. It is good 
in a score of ways — stewed, grilled, as a catsup, even 
canned — but for table use it is most desirable in the 
salad bowl, alone or in combination with escarole or 
lettuce. 

It ought to be needless to add that it is much pleas- 
anter to eat, and more digestible, if it is peeled (which 
is easily done after soaking it a moment in hot water) 
before slicing; but few cooks will take this extra 
trouble, slight though it is, unless specially requested. 

If we can perhaps give even the French points on 
tomatoes, they have much to teach us regarding another 
vegetable which is among salads what diamond-back 
terrapin and canvasback duck are among meats — the 
globe artichoke. 

Fortunately, unlike turtles and wild ducks, this 
noble plant is yearly becoming more abundant in our 
markets. It would be as much in demand as tomatoes 
were its flavor equally known and the samples on sale 
as tempting as those served in Paris and London. It is 
for the consumer to insist on having the best varieties 
sent from abroad and cultivated at home; but the 
dealers on their part ought to be alive to the fact that 
the way to increase sales is to offer the best at the 
lowest price. 



238 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

The French artichoke makes a savory vegetable, 
served hot ; but how any one can eat it — or asparagus — 
hot, when he might have it cold as a salad, with French 
dressing, is a mystery to me. Of course, it must be 
boiled, except when very young and tender. 

To get the artichoke at its best one must ask for it 
in a first-class Paris restaurant. The waiter brings a 
huge specimen in a large plate, removes the inedible 
"choke" in the center with a movement like that of a 
dextrous carver (French waiters receive prizes for skill 
in carving), and there it lies in all its fragrant magnifi- 
cence. 

Rossini objected to the turkey as being a bird too 
large for one and not large enough for two. Time and 
again in Paris I have had placed before me an artichoke 
big enough for two; and since my partner prefers the 
scales and I the fond, we were both happy though mar- 
ried. 

As the scaly leaves of the artichoke must be dipped 
into the dressing and sucked, it is not for persons who 
object to using their fingers except to hold knife and 
fork, any more than are crawfish, or olives, or peaches. 

The Moors of Morocco prefer to use their hands for 
conveying food to the mouth, because, as they sensibly 
maintain, they know that their hands have been thor- 
oughly cleaned, whereas knife and fork may have been 
washed carelessly. 

The merits of the French artichoke were known in 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 239 

New Orleans long before they were in any of our other 
cities. In various forms and combinations, it helped 
to give distinction to the famous local cuisine. 

The Frenchman who first ate an artichoke was as 
bold as the man who ate the first oyster, for the plant 
looks like a thistle and he ran the risk of being classed 
with thistle-eating quadrupeds. Compared with the 
succulent globe of to-day it must have been thin, dry, 
and tough. Yet, even now, the artichoke is capable of 
much further improvement. Burbank, if he had time, 
might put as much meat into the base of each scale as 
there is now in the bottom, and make the bottom as big 
as a full-sized turnip. 

This suggests one of the many ways in which the 
study of gastronomy serves as a guide to wealth. A 
rich harvest is sure to be reaped by those gardeners who 
will introduce to American markets the best French 
artichokes, and by the dealers who will encourage their 
purchase by asking reasonable prices for them. 
In December, 1912, I asked a dealer in Washington 
Market, New York, why there were so few artichokes 
offered for sale. "They are so cheap — we can't get 
more than 15 cents apiece for them," he replied. 
That's the American way — at present. 

For years importers and dealers have done their best 
to discourage the growing interest in another delicious 
basis for salad — the alligator-pear — by charging the 
most outrageous prices for it — usually twenty to fifty 



240 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

cents apiece, though it can be bought in the West 
Indies for a penny or two and brought to New York 
for a cent a pound. Even at such extortionate prices 
the demand usually exceeds the supply. I often hunt 
for some all over town and usually end by saying, 
"What fools these dealers be." 

The alligator-pear — or let us call it avocado, please 
— is one of the Creator's masterpieces — what we would 
call a stroke of genius had a mortal originated it. But, 
like other works of genius, it is not appreciated by all — 
or at once. An American, writing from the West In- 
dies, declared that there the avocado is "ever present 
and always welcomed." But, he proceeds, it is "a pit- 
fall and a snare, and many a green foreigner has been 
taken in by the name and afterwards by the pear itself. 
Such a magnificent specimen of this luscious fruit, the 
'pear,' as the one seen in the Jamaica markets causes the 
hand of the new arrival to go down promptly into his 
pocket for a penny with which the coveted fruit is se- 
cured. Yum, yum! A pear weighing three or four 
pounds! What a feast! The knife appears, a gen- 
erous slice is cut out, but when it touches the palate! 
Yah ! It is a flat, flabby, tasteless vegetable (although 
it grows on a tree), but sliced and eaten with salt at the 
table it forms a pleasant relish." 

Had this man eaten it with French dressing he would 
have found it a food fit for gods. The avocado was 
undoubtedly created to serve as a salad. If you cut it 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 241 

in two, lengthwise, and take out the big stone, you have 
two halves like those of a small melon. The flesh, firm 
though soft and custardy, has a most exquisite flavor 
— a faint flavor which, with oil and vinegar makes 
a symphony of fragrance. 

Until a few years ago I myself, misled by poor speci- 
mens, groped in utter darkness as to the enchantments 
of the avocado. It was Hildegarde Hawthorne who, 
returning from Jamaica, brought us some choice sam- 
ples. There was joy in the mansion thereat. It was 
like the discovery of a new song by Schubert or Grieg, 
or a new painting by Titian. 

After writing the above remarks I came across a 
clipping in which an evident epicure objected to "dese- 
crating" the avocado pear by oil or mayonnaise dressing 
when served. "Eat it with a spoon slowly," he ad- 
vises, "to give time for the pleasure it imparts to perme- 
ate the very soul, and let who will rail at fate. There 
are those who give it a slight sprinkling of salt, others 
who dust it over with a little white pepper, but per- 
sonally I would as soon think of flavoring my currant 
jelly with garlic or my chateau Yquem with Trinidad 
rum." 

This sounds plausible, and I admit that a perfect 
avocado is better without than with vinegar and oil. 
An imperfect one isn't; and in most cases we have 
found in our dining-room that the avocado is rather too 
rich to be eaten without a little acid dressing. It con- 



242 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

tains seventeen per cent, of oil, and is known in some 
regions as the "butter fruit." 

To return to France. Next to the artichoke and 
the escarole — which is the better of the two I don't 
know — the most desirable thing it has given us in the 
way of salads is the romaine — but how much whiter, 
crisper and tenderer it is in Paris than what is offered 
for sale under that name in New York ! 

Another chance to coin good money, messieurs gar- 
deners! Americans ?nust have the best, and if you 
don't supply it, a rival will. 

The American lobster and shrimp salads cannot be 
beaten; but we have much to learn of the French and 
other Europeans as to the endless varieties of green, 
vegetable, fish and meat salads by way of multiplying 
the pleasures of the table, and banishing intestinal dys- 
pepsia, for which salads are more remedial than 
Fletcherizing. 

When once the importance of this subject is fully 
understood, salads will become the principal lunch 
dishes in American homes and restaurants, especially 
during the hot months when to be "three miles from a 
lemon" — or something else that is refreshingly sour — 
is a hygienic tragedy. 

"Fruit salads," when not sour, make desirable des- 
serts. When not sour, such combinations should not 
be called salads. As a rule sour fruit mixtures seem 
incongruous to a trained palate. 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 243 

In these days of Debussyan influences one must be 
prepared for all sorts of anarchistic combinations of 
flavors. Personally, I draw the line at the compound 
of Roquefort cheese and sour salad now placed unblush- 
ingly on some American tables. The mixture of these 
two delicacies is awful. One can easily see how the 
illegitimate union was suggested by the illogical 
custom of serving cheese with salad, dressed or un- 
dressed — the usual English way. 

VEGETABLES AS A SEPARATE COURSE. 

The mess just referred to, which would make a 
Parisian gourmet shudder, is only one illustration of 
the Anglo-American mistaken policy of serving to- 
gether foods that are preferable separately. On this 
point, too, France has an important lesson to teach us, 
particularly in the serving of vegetables. 

The making of a menu requires as much taste and 
judgment as the arranging of a concert program. 
Next to variety, contrast is the most important thing 
to be considered. A vegetable served separately pro- 
vides some of this needful contrast. 

An English epicure declares that the secret of the 
excellence in French cookery lies in the lavish use of 
vegetables. "Where we use one kind, French cooks 
use twenty." 

This point was sufficiently dwelt on in the para- 
graphs relating to the making of savory soups and 



244 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

stews. It illustrates Gallic skill in culinary orchestra- 
tion. But the French know that at a dinner, as at a 
concert, a solo piece is desirable, and therefore they al- 
ways serve one choice vegetable as a separate course. 

As a matter of course the vegetable selected for this 
distinction — be it peas, beans, spinach, cauliflower, 
asparagus, artichoke, carrots, or whatnot — must be par- 
ticularly fresh and succulent. It must also, like the 
singer's solo number, have an accompaniment, that is 
to say an appropriate sauce. 

No French cook would spoil the delicate natural 
flavor of green peas with mint, as the English do. I 
once asked a waiter in a London restaurant why 
mint was put with the peas. He promptly replied: 
"Peas 'ave no flavor, sir!" 

In France, butter (French butter) is used as the best 
accompaniment to a solo vegetable. It makes the 
string beans and whatever else it goes with more 
savory, without obliterating their individual flavor, 
as the mint does in the case of peas. 

PARIS RESTAURANTS. 

The French have reason to boast that the gastro- 
nomic center of the world is in Paris, within a circle 
intersected by a line drawn from the Place de l'Opera 
to the Place Vendome. In this region there are scores 
of restaurants of the first rank in which one eats the 
best soups and stews, the best veal, the best poultry, the 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 245 

best salads and sauces, the best vegetables, the best 
entrees, the best bread and butter, the best cheeses, to 
be found anywhere on this big planet of ours. Some 
persons, for sufficient reasons, prefer English roast 
meats or German, Swiss, or Austrian pastry, but in the 
preparation of the foods just named French supremacy 
is unquestionable. 

It takes months — and a big purse — to get an ade- 
quate idea of the good things offered at the Paris 
restaurants. Each has its special dishes and sauces, 
handed down in some cases from generation to genera- 
tion. Not to have a unique sauce for sole, or a monop- 
oly in a special kind of soup, would subject an estab- 
lishment to the danger of being classed as second-rate. 

Paris is full of professional epicures — prominent 
among them are authors and journalists — who frequent 
certain places for special famous dishes and who 
quickly resent any deterioration or carelessness on the 
part of the chef. It is these connoisseurs who are 
served best; they are willing to give the cook time to 
prepare a dish scientifically, and they take time to eat 
it hygienically, that is, with lingering enjoyment of its 
appetizing flavors. 

These gourmets appreciate epicurean subtleties like 
that practiced by the late Frederic of the Tour 
d' Argent, who held that "different kinds of fuel should 
be used for the roasting of different kinds of meat, be- 
lieving that the spiced scents of some woods trans- 



246 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

mitted in the cooking add to the pleasure of eating all 
kinds of game" ; — a notion which was acted on by the 
ancient Romans as well as by Japanese gourmets, and 
which is also justified by the fact that in the smoking 




Boeuf a la Mode 

of ham and bacon it makes a decided difference what 
kind of wood is burned. 

One of the oldest Parisian restaurants is the Boeuf a. 
la Mode which, for more than a century, has owed its 
vogue in part to its special way of preparing and serv- 
ing the dish after which it is named. 

A specialty of these restaurants is pancake. In our 
own country "French pancake" is usually a thick, 
leathery griddle cake rolled round a spoonful of jelly 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 247 

and served tepid on a tepid plate. In Paris the head 
waiter himself attends to the important function of 
putting the finishing touches on the cakes. They are 
brought in from the kitchen thin, crisp, and hot; but 
that is not enough. The waiter has before him a 
chafing dish into which he puts one of the cakes, with a 
hard sauce, and some liqueur which is set on fire. He 
has also before him a pile of hot plates for each of the 
diners ; into one of these plates each cake is transferred 
when ready and brought to you by another waiter, to 
be eaten red-hot. It is worth a trip across the Atlantic 
to eat those pancakes. 

Mutton on the best Parisian menus is not simply 
mutton. It is mutton of a particular "vintage," and 
in some cases the name of the breeder of the sheep is 
printed on the bill of fare. 

Fruit is brought to the table in large baskets. Cher- 
ries, and particularly the fragrant wild strawberries, 
seem doubly appetizing when served that way. A 
fragrant French melon sometimes perfumes a whole 
dining-room. Those who have to count their francs, 
however, had better inquire as to prices before indulg- 
ing freely in fancy fruits. 

Very expensive, though worth the money, are the 
langoustes, which are as good as the American lobster. 
Better still are the ecrevnses, or crawfish, which are 
kept on sale alive in the great market place, and are 
therefore always good, and safe to eat. 



248 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Some restaurants are favored for their lunches, 
others for their dinners, still others for their 
late suppers. In this last class, it is needless to say, 
vulgar extravagance prevails. Usually there is the 
latest kind of dancing, or music, or some other kind of 
stupefying noise, and gastronomy takes a back seat. 

Warm weather brings into favor the summer restau- 
rants, in which usually one can lunch or dine in the 
garden or under a tree. That the breathing of 
outdoor air while eating is as great an appetizer 
as the savory food itself, is one of the many lessons 
we have yet to learn of the French and other Euro- 
peans. 

How did the restaurants of Paris get their culinary 
supremacy 4 ? 

During the Revolution many of the nobles were 
ruined, and their chefs — among them Meot, Robert, 
Roze, Very, Leda, Legacque, Reauvilliers, Naudet, 
Edon became caterers to gourmets at large. "Beauvil- 
liers, who established his restaurant about 1782, was 
for fifteen years the most famous restaurateur of Paris, 
and provided liberally such delicate and sublimated 
dishes as those which had hitherto been found only on 
the tables of the king, of the nobles, and of the farm- 
ers-general. The great restaurateurs of modern Paris 
are nearly all successors of one or the other of the fam- 
ous cooks above mentioned," as Theodore Child 
pointed out. 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 249 

In the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris I came across 
books giving curious glimpses of the restaurants at 
earlier periods. In 1574 there was published a "Dis- 
cours sur les causes de 1' extreme cherte qui est au- 
jourd'hui en France et sur les moyens d'y remedier." 
The author complains that people are no longer satis- 
fied with three courses but must have meats in half- 
a-dozen styles, with sauces, haches, pasticeries, all sorts 
of salmigondis, etc. Every one he says, now goes to 
dine at Le More, Sanson, Innocent, or Hanart, "mais- 
tres de volupte et despense, qui en une chose publique 
bien policee et reglee seraient bannis et choissis comme 
corrupteurs des moeurs." 

This diatribe against the providers of savory food 
as corruptors of public morals who, if the police tended 
to its duty, would be chased from the city, seems to 
indicate that Puritan ideas on the subject of the enjoy- 
ment of food once prevailed even in France. 

As late as 1842 there were only seventeen restaurants 
in Paris, where now there are more than seventeen 
times seventeen. At the date mentioned, most of them 
were near the Palais Royal, and one could dine for 
two francs — forty cents! — while lunch was only a 
franc and a quarter. There were places where a work- 
man could get, for twenty centimes (four cents), bread, 
wine, soup, and meat enough for a meal. 

In Paris, as elsewhere, prices have soared since that 
time, but correspondingly cheap eating places abound 



250 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

in all quarters. The lowest-priced restaurants likely 
to be patronized by tourists and resident foreigners are 
the Duval, and other "Bouillons," at which one who 
knows may get good dishes. Well-to-do Parisians and 
foreigners may often be seen in these eating places, 
and one of them actually has a star of excellence in 
Baedeker. 

At one of these establishments I had one of the best 
'petite marmites I have ever eaten. If you don't know 
what a petite marmite is I am sorry for you. I have 
dined repeatedly with a Frenchman noted both as art- 
ist and epicure, and each time he ordered petite mar- 
mite. If you ask a French head waiter's advice in 
London or Paris, he is more likely than not to suggest 
petite marmite. It is so good, and the making of it 
gives such a deep insight into French methods that I 
will quote the recipe by Escoffier in his "Le Guide Culi- 
naire." It is for ten people. 

Nutritious elements: 2 lbs. beef, one lb. lean, the other 
well mixed with fat, as the end of a rib. I marrowbone 
wrapped in cheese-cloth, I fowl — not too young and tender, 
giblets from four fowls. Liquid: 3 litres (about three 
quarts) of white consomme — recipe follows — the seasoning to 
be added just before serving. 

Aromatic elements: 2-5 lb. carrots (200 grammes), 2-5 lb. 
nearly ripe turnips, 3-10 lb. leeks (150 grammes), 1 small 
celery heart, ■§ lb. cabbage, blanched, cooked separately with 
bouillon and drippings. 

"Observations. The 'Petite Marmite' consomme is served 
without clarifying, and owes its merit only to the materials 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 251 

which it contains and the extreme care brought to its prepara- 
tion. It must be served slightly fat. Its special savor, dif- 
ferent from clarified consomme, must recall the homely 
Pot-au-feu, and be recognized unmistakably in Croute au pot, 
Consomme a la Bouchere, and others of which it is the base, 
the only difference being that these consommes do not need 
absolutely to have fowl in them, whereas it is rigorously 
obligatory in the Petite Marmite. 

"For 10 litres of white consomme 7 kilos of beef (between 
14 and 15 lbs.) 4 kilos being lean meat, the other 3 soup bone, 

2 1-5 lbs. carrots (5 or 6), 900 grammes (nearly 2 lbs.) turnips, 
I lb. leeks, 2-5 lb. parsnips, 2 medium-sized onions, 3 cloves, 

3 cloves of garlic, 3 pieces celery, 14 litres (14 quarts approx- 
imately) cold water, 70 grammes brown salt (salt that has not 
been purified). Cook five hours. 

"Observations: Simple consomme is habitually cooked 5 
hours, which is quite sufficient to get all the nutritious elements 
from the beef. On the other hand this is quite insufficient 
for the bones and fails to extract their nutritive principles. 
To obtain this result slow cooking from 12 to 15 hours is 
necessary. In great kitchens it has become the habit to make 
a first consomme with the bones (crushed) which will cook 
at least 12 hours. This consomme is then used for a second 
cooking of the meat alone which takes about 4 hours, that is 
only the time necessary to cook the meat. This second opera- 
tion can be shortened by cutting meat and vegetables in small 
pieces and clarifying them as usual." 

As the American practice of bluffing — of charging 
a high price for a poor thing, to make the consumer 
think it must be good — is not a Parisian trait, the more 
expensive the restaurant, the better the food is likely 
to be. 

Next to the Bouillons, in the culinary hierarchy, are 



252 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

the Brasseries. At these, one can get well prepared 
dishes at reasonable prices, which are always marked 
on the bill of fare; and, as the name indicates, one can 
take a glass of beer or a bottle of mineral water instead 
of the expensive wine which the highest class restau- 
rants expect every one to order, on penalty of perhaps 
not being served with a meal prepared in the chef's 
best mood. 

These leading restaurants are at present in the throes 
of a serious struggle for existence; pessimists go so far 
as to predict the extinction of the whole species in the 
not very distant future. The Maison Dore and the 
Cafe Riche had to make way some years ago for busi- 
ness houses that could better afford to pay the soaring 
rents, and in 1912 the Durand was transformed into 
a tailoring establishment. Of the old classical res- 
taurants the Tour d' Argent, Laperouse, Paillard, Bceuf 
a la Mode, Voisin, hold their own, yet I have dined in 
them on evenings when they were anything but 
crowded. 

Doubtless the custom of some of these places of not 
affixing prices to the viands offered on the bill of fare 
has had something to do with bringing about this 
result. Even a well-to-do diner does not always care 
to be entirely at the mercy of the head waiter in the 
making-up of his bill. But it is the multiplying of 
the brasseries that is chiefly responsible for the decline 
of the high-priced restaurants, and another dangerous 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 253 

rival that has helped to bring it about is the palatial, 
up-to-date hotel. Some of these hotels employ as 
good chefs as the leading restaurants and offer as 
abundant opportunities for sumptuous and savory 
repasts, at prices tall enough to please the most reck- 
less visitor from New York or Buenos Ayres. 

Gourmets will doubtless continue to frequent the 
classical restaurants as long as they maintain their 
high standard. It would be a historic as well as a 
gastronomic calamity to have them disappear. If 
necessary the Government should give them a sub- 
vention as it does to the Opera and the Theatre Fran- 
cois; for these epicurean establishments have done quite 
as much as the theaters to make France famous among 
the civilized nations of the world. 

It is owing to them that French long ago became the 
culinary world-language. Go wherever you please, 
from Paris to Berlin, to Lucerne, Milan, Vienna, Con- 
stantinople, Tokio; or, in the other direction, to Lon- 
don, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Melbourne, 
— everywhere, at the leading restaurants, you will find 
the menu printed in French, and, in case of a course 
dinner, the viands offered in the order prescribed by 
French gourmets. 

In Germany, after the Franco-Prussian war, chau- 
vinistic attempts were made to banish French words 
from the bill of fare. These attempts were, as Her- 
mann Dunger frankly admits in his Verdeutschungs- 



254 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

ivorterbuch (1882), a failure; in some cases the comic 
consequence was that Germans who recognized a dish 
under its French name had n't the remotest idea what 
it was when translated into their own language. Like 
the Italian forte, piano, adagio, diminuendo, and other 
musical expression marks, French gastronomic words 
have become parts of a spontaneous Esperanto — a 
world-language, which has come to stay; a perpetual 
reminder of the most important contribution made by 
the great French nation to modern civilization — the 
gradual substitution, everywhere, and particularly in 
Germany and England, of refined methods of prepar- 
ing food in place of the barbarous mediaeval ones 
prevalent until two centuries ago. 

We get an interesting glimpse of French gastro- 
nomic leadership by glancing at the words successively 
adopted by the Germans. In 1715, when the "Frauen- 
zimmerlexicon" of Amaranthes appeared, the follow- 
ing French words had already gained currency, among 
them: bouillon, carbonade, champignon, cotelette, 
coulis, creme, a. la daube, entremets, farce, fricadelle 
fricandeau, fricasse, gelee, hachis, marinieren, omelette, 
pikant, potage, ragout, saucisse; and for most of these 
there was no exact equivalent in German. 

During the time of Louis XV Germany further im- 
ported the following: dejeuner, diner, souper, dessert, 
entree, fumet, haut-gout, poularde, sauciere, sorbet, 
table d'hote, bonbon, champagne, limonade, liqueur. 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 255 

To a later period belong baiser, boeuf a la mode, 
consomme, filet, hors d'ceuvre, konserve, roulade. 
These as well as the words gastronome and gourmand 
were imported during the early decades of the nine- 
teenth century. To the second half of the century 
belong croquette, entrecote, flan, remoulade, meringue, 
puree, vol-au-vent. The word menu was not adopted 
in Germany till after 1850. 

RUSSIAN AND AMERICAN INFLUENCES. 

In Paris as in New York one can make a gastro- 
nomic tour of the world. While the French, in return 
for all the culinary terms they have lent their neighbors 
seem to have adopted only one Teutonic word ("Bock," 
for beer), they amiably tolerate the presence within 
their walls of German and Austrian restaurants, some 
of which are excellent, though thoroughly exotic from 
the French point of view. In one of them the host 
is so much of an epicure himself that in his delight 
with the Viennese menu he sketches for you, he will 
blow a kiss at the enjoyments it calls up in his imagina- 
tion. 

Most Germans and Austrians, however, are glad to 
frequent the French restaurants while in Paris, and 
the same, as Col. Newnham-Davis informs us, is true 
of the English visitor, though if he desires a chop or 
a steak, he can have one made to order in one of the 
many grill rooms in foreign style that have come into 



256 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

existence, and in one of which the joints of beef and 
mutton are wheeled to the tables and carved there to 
order, as in some London eating houses. The Italians 
are more apt to cling to their own style of cookery, and 
they have plenty of places adorned with Chianti bottles 
where they can have their spaghetti, their risotto, their 
fritto misto, and their other excellent fries. The 
Spanish also have places where they can indulge their 
appetite for home dishes; and so have many other na- 
tions, including Greeks, as well as the Turks and other 
Orientals. 

Of all the foreigners only two, the Russians and the 
Americans, have had a definite influence on the French 
cuisine and menu — and not to their advantage, it must 
be confessed. 

From the Russians the Paris restaurateurs bor- 
rowed the custom of beginning a meal with hors 
d'ceuvres, or appetizers. I remember the time when 
the hors d'ceuvres in France simply meant radishes, 
butter, and a few thin slices of sausage which were 
placed on the table at once and against indulging in 
which the guide books warned tourists unless they 
were prepared to face a substantial addition to their 
bill. To-day, the price of the appetizers is usually 
noted on the bill of fare, and it is not at all high, even 
at the aristocratic restaurants. Cold smoked salmon, 
tunny fish, sardines, baby artichokes in oil, various 
vegetable, fish, and lobster salads, cold eggs, sliced 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 257 

sausages, and sundry other delicacies are offered, with 
bread and butter. 

These things undoubtedly are good, and they are 
appetizers ; but they are also appetite destroyers — quite 
too substantial to preface an elaborate dinner. In 
Russia and Scandinavia, where the extreme cold creates 
a ravenous appetite and a great capacity for stowing 
away things, they may be all right; but in temperate 
climes, and for dwellers in cities who get little exer- 
cise, they are too heavy. When I see one of these 
displays of cold dishes I always think what a tempting 
lunch they would make all by themselves; but if I 
eat them before dinner I certainly cannot enjoy what 
follows as much as I would without them; and that, 
I believe, is the experience of most diners who are 
not neighbors of the Eskimos. 

It is different with caviare and oysters. These are 
merely appetizers, containing little nourishment; but 
caviare is not for everybody, and as for oysters, since 
they must be served ice-cold, it is unwise to chill the 
stomach by beginning with them. Let them follow 
the soup, which is, because of its warmth and its stimu- 
lating effect on the digestive glands, the best thing 
to begin a meal with. Muskmelons and grapefruir 
may be allowed to precede it if served without ice v 
which certainly impairs their flavor. 

While adopting the Russian hors d'ceuvre habit, the 
Parisians have had too much taste and moderation to 



258 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

indulge in its Gargantuan extremes. The perform- 
ances of Russians and Swedes border on the miracu- 
lous. 

If Russians in Paris cannot everywhere indulge in 
the riotous profusion of hors d'ceuvre they have at 
home, they can do so at La Rue's, which has a full line 
of them and also of diverse other "mets Russes na- 
tionaux." 

Americans who wish to eat ham and eggs, or hash, 
or corn muffins, griddle cakes, breakfast cereals and 
that sort of thing, may find them in hotels and in not 
a few of the restaurants. American lobsters, at Eiffel 
Tower prices, are on every menu, and there are places 
where oysters from across the Atlantic, as well as na- 
tive, can be ordered raw, scalloped, fried, broiled, or 
in diverse stews, tout comme chez nous. The numer- 
ous grill rooms are also accommodating, though they 
do not open early enough to offer an American break- 
fast, while the hotels seldom venture on anything be- 
yond bacon and eggs before lunch time. 

It would be well if the Parisians ate an American 
breakfast and followed it up with a lighter lunch; but 
it would require another revolution to bring about such 
a reform. 

Paris has become considerably Americanized. One 
can hardly wonder at having our cotton seed oil served 
instead of the noble juice of the olive at the cheap 
restaurants; but when I found that it was used un- 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 259 

blushingly at some of the more expensive places I was 
shocked at this sign of decadence — or effrontery — and 
visions of cold storage poultry, salted butter, and 
doughy bread with inedible crust — but no! such 
things no one would ever dare to place before Pari- 
sians ! 

The fact that their own olive oil is not as a rule 
equal to the best Italian may have made them for the 
moment tolerant of the American invader. The 
health authorities speak of diverse other substitutions 
and adulterants as being in use; but these are not 
necessarily American, though we lead the world in our 
tolerance of them. 

What the Parisians chiefly complain about in refer- 
ence to American influence is that it has introduced 
our national vice of hurry into the kitchen and the 
dining-room. When so many of the wealthiest pa- 
trons of the restaurants expect to get dishes served at 
a moment's notice, to be gulped down and hastily fol- 
lowed by others, the very strongholds of gastronomic 
France — slow cooking and leisurely eating — are 
assailed. 

The chief danger to the French cuisine lies in the 
fact that, as Mr. Paderewski put it in a talk I had 
with him on this subject, "it is so much easier to pre- 
pare a meal the American way." 

South Americans, though they have little to boast of 
at home in the way of pleasures of the table, adapt 



260 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

themselves more easily to French ways, and as they 
are rapidly increasing in numbers in Paris and spend 
even more money than the North Americans, their 
influence will perhaps counteract that of the impatient 
visitors from the United States, who usually know so 
much more about making dollars than about spending 
them rationally. 

Every American has attended banquets at which 
there was more to feast the eyes than the palate. In 
the Figaro Marcel Prevost complained (1910) that 
this sort of thing was gaining in Paris. "Mangeront- 
ils?" he asked — will Parisians of the future eat? 
Judging by the present tendency, they will not, he 
answers — they will feed. They will take nourish- 
ment, but gastronomy, the art of dining with intelli- 
gence and pleasure, will have ceased to exist. In the 
house the cause of this change is what Prevost calls the 
"progres de la coquetterie feminine." Women, to be 
sure, were never the greatest of the culinary artists, but 
they used to pay some attention to food and its prepara- 
tion, whereas at present their chief thought is of the 
appearance of the dining-room and the table. The 
linen, the porcelain, the glassware, must be of the 
finest, the flowers of the costliest, but the food and 
wine are provided by a paid caterer, who seldom knows 
his business. As for eating in restaurants or hotels, 
that is no better. The famous "maisons" have disap- 
peared, to be replaced by huge palaces, in which every- 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 261 
thing is showy and sumptuous but the food every- 
where the same, without distinction or individuality. 
What is worse, the younger generation does not seem 
to regret this. French youth even drink American 
cocktails and are not ashamed! 

While there is no doubt some truth in these allega- 
tions they are absurdly exaggerated. Complaints as 
to the decadence of French cookery have been made at 
regular intervals — like the complaints about the dis- 
appearance of great singers. I once amused myself 
by writing an article covering three centuries, in which 
I quoted the laments of each generation over the de- 
cline of the art of song as compared with the brilliant 
achievements of the preceding generation of singers. 
Were it worth while I might compile equally amusing 
evidence on the subject of the French cuisine. Thack- 
eray complained of a similarity of dinners. Charles 
Monselet in 1879, looked "in vain for the tables that 
are praised or the hosts that are renowned." In 1866 
Nestor Roqueplan complained that the French "no 
longer find places devoted to the Flemish kitchen, 
others to the Normandy, Lyonnaise, Toulousian, Bor- 
delaise, or Provencal kitchens." But he had the good 
sense to add that "France nevertheless is still the coun- 
try where eating is found at its best." 

So it is at the present day, and is likely to be for 
years to come. No matter how many of the best chefs 
are taken away by American millionaires or Russian 



262 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Grand Dukes, Paris remains the world's high school 
of culinary art. 

PROVINCIAL LOCAL FLAVORS. 

While there may be fewer opportunities than there 
were formerly to get special Lyonnaise, Toulousian, or 
Bordelaise dishes in Paris, the Provinces themselves 
offer abundant opportunity to study and enjoy the in- 
finite variety of French cookery. How large a field is 
open to the student may be inferred from the fact that 
Col. Newnham-Davis devotes no fewer than seventy 
pages of his "Gourmet's Guide to Europe" to a study 
of the inns, hotels, and restaurants of Provincial 
France. He found that "almost every town of any 
importance has some special dish or some special pate 
of its own; there are hundreds of good old inns where 
the cuisine is that of their province, and there are great 
tracts of country which ought to be marked by some 
special color on all guide-book maps, where the cook- 
ery is universally good." 

This noted English epicure advises gourmets who 
have time to journey leisurely and especially those who 
have an automobile at command, to make a journey of 
gastronomic exploration in the district between Mont- 
pellier and Toulouse, which is "a cradle of good 
cooks" and where some of the traditions of cookery of 
the old Romans still linger. The land of the Meuse, 
the Moselle, and the Saone is another and more north- 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 263 

erly paradise of good cooking. "In Dordogne there is 
not a peasant who cannot get a traveler en panne a 




Coming to market, Brittany 

truffled omelette which would make an alderman's 
mouth water . . . and all the Midi from the 
Alps to the Pyrenees is a happy hunting ground for the 
gastronome." 



264 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

My own experience in these regions is much more 
limited, but wherever I followed this epicure's advice 
I found him a reliable guide. In most parts of France, 
however, a guide to good cheer is hardly needed, for 
you can stop at almost any inn with the assurance of 
getting a savory lunch, dinner, or supper. In Proven- 
cal inns garlic is no doubt used too freely, but no 
harm can come to those who cannot stomach it, since its 
warning appeals as distinctly to the nose as the rattle- 
snake's does to the ear. 

The Pyrenees are famed for trout and chicken. 
The chicken we found excellent, the trout less so. An 
innkeeper with whom I discussed the matter admitted 
frankly that they left something to be desired in the 
matter of flavor. A Parisian epicure to whom I had 
mentioned trout one day, shook his head and sug- 
gested sole or turbot instead. 

Sole is at its best at Dieppe. In that town there 
is a restaurant, formerly frequented by Whistler, 
where the waiter, to please fastidious guests, proudly 
serves soles caught with his own hands in the early 
morning hours. 

Cannes has a hotel the guests of which can 
go to a tank and with a net catch the particular 
fishes they want to eat half an hour later. At Aix- 
les-Bains there is a caterer who "will not have any 
salt-water fish in his larder, for Aix in summer is so hot 
that sea fish do not always come to table quite fresh, 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 265 

and this risk he will not run, in the interest of his 
clients." 

America is not the only country where oysters are 
cheap. At Caen one pays only ten or twelve cents 
for a dozen of the best bivalves from Ouistreham and 
Courselles. 

All along the French coast, west and south, one 
comes across dishes which owe their unique and usually 
delicious flavor to some special variety of shell fish, 
peculiar to the place, which is added to the sauce. 

Marseilles is perhaps the best place for experiment- 
ing with shell-fishes new to the visitor's palate. That 
this city owes its international fame largely to a special 
marine stew called bouillabaisse everybody knows. As 
I have eaten this dish in Marseilles itself but once and 
that so long ago that I do not remember the details, 
I will quote Col. Newnham-Davis's graphic remarks 
on it: 

"The Southerners firmly believe that this dish can- 
not be properly made except of the fish that swim in 
the Mediterranean; the rascaz, a little fellow all head 
and eyes, being an essential in the savory stew, along 
with the eel, the lobster, the dory, the mackerel, and 
the girelle. Thackeray has sung the ballad of the dish 
as he used to eat it and his recette, because it is poetry, is 
accepted, though it is but the fresh-water edition of the 
stew. If you do not like oil, garlic, and saffron, which 
all come into its composition, give it a wide berth; but 



266 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

I should mention that the bouillabaisse at the Reserve 
is quite a mild and lady-like stew compared to that 
one gets at Bregailla's or the restaurants of the Rue 
Noailles." 

Marseilles is not far from Italy, but before we pro- 
ceed to that country, to learn what it can teach us in 
regard to wholesome and enjoyable foods, we must 
return for a moment to Paris to consider a few more 
of the specialties in which it asserts its gastronomic 
supremacy. 

However interesting the Provinces may be because 
of their local dishes and delicacies, and because of the 
proof they afford that the value of well-cooked food 
is appreciated throughout France, their most important 
function, from our point of view, is that of providing 
the first-class material out of which the Parisian cooks 
prepare their chefs d'ceuvres of culinary art. This 
material is sent daily from all directions to the metrop- 
olis in special express trains, to be offered for sale in 
the Halles Centrales, which, to the lover of good food 
and beautiful flowers, is one of the most interesting 
spots on earth. 

THE WORLD'S GREATEST MARKET PLACE. 

Emile Zola made these Halles Centrales the back- 
ground of one of his naturalistic stories, "Le Ventre de 
Paris." Even his realistic and graphic descriptions 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 267 

fail, however, to convey an adequate idea of the colos- 
sal food traffic carried on in this market place, which, 
to be sure, is now much bigger than it was when 
he wrote his novel, not long after the erection of the 
vast structure, in 1851. 

Ten pavilions there are in this building, each of 
them containing two hundred and fifty stalls. Retail 
dealers are installed in the front pavilions, while the 
others are occupied by the wholesale vendors, whose 
business also overflows into the streets leading to the 
market place. For the storing of provisions there is 
further a cellar under the Halles, divided into twelve 
hundred compartments. 

To see this food market in its most characteristic 
aspects one has to get up long before the sun. It was 
half past four on a May morning when my wife and I 
unbolted the door of our hotel and hailed an auto-taxi 
to take us to the Halles. All Paris was still in bed, 
with the exception of the street-cleaners, who were giv- 
ing the city its morning bath, a few chauffeurs, and the 
market gardeners, porters, vendors and buyers whose 
business it is to bring and distribute the daily provisions 
of the French metropolis. The following details as to 
what we saw are taken from an article written by my 
companion : 

"At this early hour buyers are still rare. Inquisi- 
tive Americans may wander about with the freedom of 
disembodied spirits, and without attracting much more 



268 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

attention. We kept discreetly out of the way of hurry- 
ing porters and of swearing cartmen who were bring- 




The world's greatest market place 

ing their huge loads of vegetables to market. From 
the carts enormous mounds of carrots, long white 
turnips, cauliflowers, salads of all kinds, cabbages, 
sorrel tied in neat packages, radishes black and red, 
were being unloaded and stacked with incredible dex- 
terity and rapidity, each mound a picture; the carrots 
and turnips were built up in square fortresses, the 
vegetables turned outward with perfect regularity, an 
orange and white feast to the eye, as well as a promise 
of joys to come for the palate. Beside these are 
heaped pointed cabbages of freshest green ; cauliflowers 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 269 

as white as bridal bouquets; lettuces laid head down; 
escarole and romaine lying on their sides, displaying 
round, appetizing tips; chicory, a frizzled tangle of 
greenish white; while nearby bee-hive heaps of rosy 
radishes add another vivid color note. 

"A little farther on our noses are greeted by the 
most exquisite perfumes, coming from large baskets of 
strawberries — the big cultivated ones — and the still 
more fragrant wild berries, the 'petites f raises des bois' 
which Parisians so dote on. Cherries, too, are plenti- 
ful, but they do not fill the air with luscious odors, as 
do the strawberries, though their deeper red, the gloss 
of their perfect surface and the contrasting pale green 
of their stems are a delight to the eye. 

"The aestheticism of the Paris Halles is one of its 
dominant characteristics. Flowers appear in every 
corner mixed in with the stalls for edibles. Although 
a whole cross-street is given over to them, they are too 
abundant, Paris loves them too well, and needs too 
many for them to find sufficient room in one place 
only. A whole long block is devoted to bleuets^ the 
simple corn flowers of the fields, packed in bunches a 
foot square; but roses reign supreme, pink, red, tea, 
moss, of all varieties, picked fresh and adding their 
perfumes to those of fruits and vegetables. 

"There are also masses of irises, France's flower, yel- 
low and blue; spicy pinks, ranging from white to dark 
red, through all the shades from palest salmon to deep 



270 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

rose; pansies, purple or yellow, bunched by colors; 
peonies, rose-scented, long stemmed, heavy-headed, in 
crimson, in pink, in white; Iceland poppies, bitterly 
fragrant, white, yellow, orange. 

"It is almost impossible to tear one's self away from 
this riot of color and perfume, but there are so many 
sights that demand attention. 

"Even the dead are not forgotten in the great 
market, for in one section of the Halles, under its huge 
resounding roof, one may buy the bead wreaths which 
are made to adorn French graveyards. There is al- 
most a western American atmosphere in this light 
touching upon death in this center of vivid life, and 
once more we realize the kinship between French and 
Americans — except in the matter of eating, in which 
alas, we are so far behind them. 

"The fish market does not open till late, for Paris 
wants its fish fresh caught, but there is the meat market 
to see, and there are still streets and streets of vegeta- 
bles, streets filled with people, especially of busy por- 
ters with full or empty 'hottes' — the large baskets 
used in carrying vegetables — on their backs; or with 
the flat fruit baskets, four feet by two and a half, 
balanced on their heads, on which they carry loads of 
other baskets filled with strawberries, walking along as 
calmly as if they were alone in the world, and as if 
the streets were not slippery with vegetable leaves. 
We found it difficult to keep our footing on this green 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 



271 



refuse from cabbages and lettuces, carrots and turnips, 
which had been cut off at one blow by the men who 
stacked them. But it was all fresh, clean, and sweet 
smelling. 

"By six o'clock the vegetable mounds had disap- 




Paris market porters 



peared almost entirely, as if melted away by the rising 
sun, and one understands why photographs of the Paris 
market are so scarce. When the sun finally shines 
through the soft morning haze there is little left to 
snap-shot. Three porters in blue blouses with 'hottes' 
on their backs politely consented to pose, and a pretty 
Parisian girl, brown-eyed and red-cheeked, had gladly 
stood near her pile of sorrel to be caught in the cam- 
era, 



272 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

"The artichokes do not pose well. Great baskets 
heaped with these green scaly globes fill one street, 
but to catch them is next to impossible. First a cart 
gets stalled in front of a particularly fine group, and 
when that is gone there is a mass of people who must 
pass. Every one who notices the photographic at- 
tempts asks 'Is it for the Cinema'?' — the Paris rage of 
the moment — and one good-natured, impertinent 
Parisian asks if photographs are for sale and at what 
price. He is really so 'sympathique,' in the French 
sense, that one immediately confides one's desires and 
difficulties to him. 

"At the chicken stalls, where the would-be photogra- 
pher has to change a film, she finds an exhibition of 
the lower-class rudeness, and also of the lower-class 
politeness of the French market woman. From a cor- 
ner which seemed to belong to no one she is rudely 
requested to move on, while ten steps farther on she is 
made welcome, given a chair, questioned about 
the 'Cinema,' and apologized to for the lack of civility 
of the other woman. 

"At another stall among the vegetables, one saucy 
young woman gets well laughed at by her companions. 
She is not too busy to notice the strangers, and, after 
looking them over with rather an impertinent stare, 
she remarks that it is 'funny to see these English people 
in Paris.' A laughing rejoinder from the strangers 
that they are not English but Americans makes her 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 273 

look abashed, much to the amusement of the other 
women. 

"In this retail department there are plenty of string 
beans which are better in Paris than anywhere else, 













•>.'A :'$-0*i* tiW', j~"'~-f-\ _ _,«; 

-■■:.'■ ". *-'-'-^V--,^: 

■'•■."*.,- <*'< s 

Halles Centrales 



but the best of which an ignorant American would not 
think of buying. They are small and thin, and 
streaked with black, almost as if rusted. To the eye 
they are far less tempting than the thick rich green 
beans in our markets, but in taste they are more lus- 



274 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

cious. On the other hand, French peas are not equal, 
usually, to the English and American ones, being 
harder and less sweet, and therefore their flavor is 
not impaired, as ours would be, by the fact that the 
market-women sell some of them shelled. A real 
genre picture they make, three of these women, 
dropping the pale green pearls into wooden bowls, and 
talking even faster than they shell. 

"We passed rather hastily through the meat market, 
although that is quite as interesting in its way as the 
other quarters, but we were especially desirous to see 
the fish market in its glory. However, we had a rapid 
view of great beef carcasses hung in rows, hundreds of 
lambs, calves and other creatures, and of the neat stalls 
where calves' heads, pigs' and lambs' feet, livers, sweet- 
breads, brains, and even lungs are all hung in neat 
array, or displayed attractively on slabs. French deal- 
ers know to perfection how to set off their wares. They 
have special methods of presenting their fine poultry 
so that no buyer can resist them, no matter what the 
price may be for turkeys, ducks, capons and poulardes. 

"Vine and other leaves for decorative purposes are 
sold regularly in the market, and no one who has not 
seen it can imagine how much more tempting a fine 
Camembert or Pont l'Eveque can appear when it is 
set carefully on a fresh green leaf. The large cheeses 
cannot be thus decorated, but the smaller ones, as well 
as the pats of Normandy butter and the tempting little 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 275 

brown pots of delicately sour 'creme d'Tsigny,' are 
always displayed in this way. The fine fruits, too, 
are made the object of solicitous care; in one corner 
of the market we ran across two men who were tenderly 
unloading the most fragrant melons, and arranging 
fine peaches, six in a box, laid carefully on a bed of 
soft white cotton. The perfect bunches of grapes for 
which some wealthy American may, later in the day, 
pay a fabulous price at the Cafe de Paris or at Voisin's, 
are temptingly exhibited in the same mannei. It is 
strange that Paris is generally more sesthetic and ar- 
tistic in its food and flower displays than in those 
of the many other luxuries and fashions it provides 
for the world. 

"At six- thirty the fish market opens, and as one 
approaches, the deafening noise of the wholesalers, 
crying their wares, and selling to the highest bidder, 
fills the ears. The nose, too, takes cognizance of the 
perfume of the sea, the salt freshness of recently caught 
fish, quite different from the ancient and fish-like smell 
of an ordinary New York fish stall. We breathe it 
in with almost as much pleasure as we did the fruit, 
vegetable and flower perfumes. Here again the eyes 
are satisfied as well as the nose. Pale brown fish in 
a pale brown basket may be an accident, but it is a 
happy one. Quantities of spiny 'langoustes,' with 
long feelers, splotched with yellow and red ; of lobsters 
with huge claws; of neatly arranged soles, lying in 



276 



FOOD AND FLAVOR 



pairs; of beautifully marked Spanish mackerel, of 
great white skates, and of many other sea-fish are being 
rapidly transferred from the wholesale to the retail 
departments. In the fresh-water section, huge tanks, 



1'k 

MA 












Or? 




A bit of the great Paris market 

with water flowing in rapidly from great faucets, hold 
carp, eels, and other fish, all alive ; but the greater num- 
ber of tanks are filled with scrambling hundreds of 
crawfish, the much prized French 'ecrevisse,' which, 
with the langoustes, reach the high-water mark for 
shell-fish prices in the restaurants — but they are worth 
it. The ecrevisse is no better than our Oregon craw- 
fish, but the latter are being rapidly exterminated, 
whereas in France the delicious creatures are properly 
protected. 

"In this same section another French delicacy, snails, 
are for sale. Boxes full of them may be seen, some of 
the snails remaining patiently in their home corral, 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 277 

while others, more adventurous, were crawling up the 
fish tanks, or had even dropped to the floor, owing to 
their too great desire to explore the world. 

"The market itself is quite as much inclined to spread 
as the snails. All the adjacent streets are filled with 
shops for edibles, especially of the less perishable va- 
riety, like cheeses of all kinds, some as big as auto- 
wheels. The cabarets do a brisk business in feeding 
the providers of Paris food, but foolishly we failed to 
try one of these places to discover what kind of break- 
fast the food-raisers themselves eat, and we went back 
to our hotel hungry, past all this mass of eatables, past 
cafes which were just being opened, where floors were 
being washed and chairs lay inhospitably on the tables. 
One almost felt as if Paris never was ready to eat 
breakfast." 

Besides the Halles Centrales there are a number of 
smaller covered markets distributed over the city, much 
frequented on certain days by all classes. Women 
everywhere are fond of shopping, but in France foreign- 
ers as well as natives revel in the joys of marketing. 
Read, for instance, this joyous outburst of an American 
girl dwelling in Paris for her musical education : 

"Now the mystery why the shops and galleries are 
almost deserted by the French on Wednesdays and Sat- 
urdays is explained. They are all at the market, — a 
dense struggling, chattering mob, pawing away at the 
fresh country produce, while above the din rise the 



278 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

shrieks and howls of the booth venders. A lively, a 
typically French scene. You get one of those French 
net-work bags, which will stretch to hold nearly a 
bushel of supplies, and sail into the thick of the fray. 
By the time you are out on the other side you are loaded 
to the ears with enough stuff to last the party a week 
and have spent just four francs. Celery, one cent a 
bunch. Fresh country potatoes, 35 cents a bushel. 
Country killed meats at one-half city prices. It is 
more fun than a circus, and from that time on you 
will set aside an hour every Wednesday and Saturday 
to go a-marketing, as one of the prime joys of life." 

MODEL MARKET GARDENS. 

The biggest vegetables and fruits are by no means 
always the best. But, given a good variety, the ideal 
to be aimed at is to have it as big as possible while still 
young and tender. 

This ideal the French market-gardeners live up to, 
and that is what makes their productions a joy, first to 
the eyes, and then to the palate. 

Intensive cultivation is the key to the mystery of 
how it 's done. Expert testimony is to the effect that 
the market gardens in and around Paris are "the best 
and most thoroughly cultivated patches of ground in 
Europe." From them "at least threefold more pro- 
duce is gathered than from similar extent of garden- 
ground elsewhere." Though the climate is far from 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 279 

mild — and even in the harshest months — whole train- 
loads of lettuce heads and other vegetables are sent 
daily from Paris to other cities, some of them as far 
away as Russia. 

Eight crops in one year are frequently gathered from 
a garden. No time is wasted; while, for instance, the 
cos lettuce in one bed rears its head on high, the ground 
underneath is already carpeted with the green leaves of 
a young crop of escaroles. This rotation is one of the 
secrets of success. Thorough cultivation and enrich- 
ment of the soil constitute another, some of the crops 
being grown in beds made up almost entirely of manure. 
But mainly, it is "owing to the abundant watering of 
these gardens that the Paris markets are throughout the 
hot season better supplied with crisp, tender, fresh 
vegetables than any other capital in Europe." 

Water makes up nearly the whole substance of most 
vegetables — for instance, over 88 per cent, of carrots, 
90 of cabbage, 93 of lettuce and pumpkins, 95 of cu- 
cumbers. Withhold it on a few sunny days, and the 
vegetables become mere masses of tough fiber. As long 
ago as 1878, W. Robinson, F. L. S., whose words I 
have just cited, called attention in his valuable and 
beautifully illustrated book on the Parks and Gardens 
of Paris teethe anomalous fact that though all failures 
in English gardens are attributed to "want of sun," nev- 
ertheless if there is a warm and sunny season the mar- 
ket supplies soon run short, owing to the absence of any 



280 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

preparation for watering garden crops. "Three warm 
days in July show their effect in Covent Garden, in- 
convenience the housekeeper, and injure and reduce the 
supplies of vegetable food at a time when these are 
more than ever important for health." 

Since that time, no doubt, some improvement has 
been effected in England, but Covent Garden Market 
is still largely dependent on French gardeners for its 
best products, in the line of vegetables, and also of 
fruits and berries. 

MUSHROOMS AND TRUFFLES. 

One of the most interesting chapters in Mr. Robin- 
son's book is on Mushroom Culture in Caves Under 
Paris, those he visited being at Montrouge, just outside 
the fortifications. The beds are from sixty to eighty 
feet under the street and from this single cave the daily 
gathering averaged from four hundred to fifteen hun- 
dred pounds, the favorite size of the mushroom gath- 
ered being about that of a chestnut. 

There are thousands of abandoned stone quarries in 
France, hundreds of which are used by mushroom 
growers, who earn many millions a year by thus cater- 
ing intelligently and zealously to the palates of their 
countrymen — and of foreigners, too, for there is a 
large export trade — in mushrooms, fresh, canned, pow- 
dered, bottled in oil or butter, or preserved in other 
ways. 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 281 

An odd detail about these caves is that, although 
they are well ventilated, the mushrooms refuse, after a 
while, to grow in them till after a general cleaning out 
and a rest of a year or two. 

Although, both as a separate dish and as an ingredi- 
ent of diverse sauces, soups, stews, and gravies, mush- 
rooms play an important part in the cuisine of the 
French, they seem on the whole to risk the eating of 
fewer varieties than are consumed in some other coun- 
tries. About a thousand different varieties are known 
to botanists, yet in Paris, as I was informed by a pro- 
fessor of the University of Lyons, only twenty-five 
kinds are commonly eaten, while in the markets of 
Lyons only half-a-dozen sorts may be offered for sale. 
One cannot but admire this prudent self-denial on the 
part of a race so addicted to the pleasures of the table. 

In Germany there are frequent expositions of mush- 
rooms and other fungi, for educational purposes. In 
England the Board of Agriculture issued in 1912 a 
little book entitled "Edible and Poisonous Fungi," 
with colored pictures of more than a dozen good mush- 
rooms besides the one usually consumed (Agraricus 
Cam'pestris) . An English friend of mine likes to re- 
call the days of his boyhood when his breakfast con- 
sisted of several platefuls of mushrooms which he gath- 
ered every morning fresh under the trees. 

In American forests mushrooms grow in superabun- 
dance, but few are gathered for the table, though most 



282 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

of them are harmless. Speaking of the hills of the 
Blue Ridge Mountains near Harper's Ferry Dr. Wiley 
says he has seen "large areas of the forest almost cov- 
ered with these growths in August and September, but 
the courage leading to their consumption was want- 
ing." 1 

A picture in the Fliegende Blatter shows a little girl 
bringing a basket of mushrooms from the woods. Be- 
ing asked by the pastor in passing if she is not afraid 
her family may be poisoned, she answers cheerfully, 
"Oh, no! We sell these." 

The nutritive value of mushrooms is small. It is 
on account of their delicious and varied Flavors that 
they are gathered and cultivated; and Flavor, as has 
been pointed out so many times in the preceding pages, 
is so important to good digestion and consequent 
health that it is a great pity that in eating them one 
runs the risk of a painful death ; at least in the case of 
wild mushrooms, some of which aggravate their orfen- 
siveness by trying to look as much as possible like 
certain harmless specimens. 

While truffles, like mushrooms, grow all over 
Europe, as well as on other continents, in many varie- 
ties, it is the French, again, who have taught the 
world the most valuable lessons regarding their diverse 

1 An excellent summary of what it is important to know about mush- 
rooms and toadstools is included in Dr. Wiley's "Foods and Their 
Adulteration." Of the many books specially devoted to this subject 
Gibson's is perhaps the best. 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 283 

uses for flavoring soups, sauces, meats, and gravies. 

The French varieties happen to be the best of all, 
especially those grown in Perigord and in the Depart- 
ment Vaucluse, which was reaflorested in 1858 with 
oaks, in the shade of which these fungi are particularly 
at home. 

In Russia, formerly, bears were used to unearth them, 
but to-day pigs and trained dogs are relied on for lo- 
cating the ripe specimens — a feat which man, with his 
inferior powers of smell, cannot imitate; the result 
being that when he tries to harvest them himself, great 
waste results through the uncovering of unripe speci- 
mens. Maybe, some day, our noses will be so well 
trained that truffle-hunters will be able to get along 
without pigs, dogs, bears — or flies, which, in warm 
weather, hover over the spots where the ripe fungi are 
hidden from the eye. 

Truffles are expensive, and therefore often adulter- 
ated — with dirt, to increase their weight, with unripe 
tubercles that have little or no flavor, and in various 
other ways, including the making of artificial truffles 
from potatoes. An English writer says that the "false 
truffle" {Scleroderma vulgare) "is extremely common 
on the surface of the ground in woods, and is gathered 
by Italians and Frenchmen in Epping Forest for the 
inferior dining-rooms of London, where continental 
dishes are served. It is a worthless, offensive, and pos- 
sibly dangerous fungus." 



284 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

TRAINING TREES FOR FANCY FRUITS. 

Good fruit is more abundant and cheaper in the 
United States than anywhere in Europe. When sun- 
ripened and picked at the right time, it is all that fruit 
should be. Unfortunately, it is not usually brought 
into our markets in that condition. 

The Paris restaurants have a way of adorning their 
entrance with a stand covered with various kinds of 
properly ripened fruit, the fragrance of which serves 
as an appetizer preceding the hors d'ceuvre or the soup. 
They are extra choice fruits, and expensive, but in the 
markets one can buy the same very much more reason- 
ably. 

In the raising of fruit the French rely less on climate 
than on their own skill and care. The best peaches 
eaten in Paris do not come from the Sunny South, but 
from the neighborhood of the city, where they are 
grown against walls, and carefully cultivated and pro- 
tected. When visiting France at the request of the 
London "Times" to study the methods which have 
made fruit in that country so good, Mr. W. Robinson 
found it a common thing to see a professor of fruit- 
culture and his class assembled round a tree, pruning 
it and discussing every operation as it goes on. 

The pupils have much to learn, for the French do not 
simply cultivate trees in orchards as we do, but subject 
them to much trimming and bending of the branches 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 285 

so as to secure the best distribution of the sap and the 
greatest amount of sunlight and warmth. 

The Japanese have taught us how to prune a 
chrysanthemum plant so as to make it produce giant 
blossoms. Our florists make use of the same method 
to concentrate the sap and vigor of a root and stem in a 
single perfect American Beauty rose. It is not size 
alone that is aimed at. Sometimes the result of such a 
method is a thing like the Belle Angevine pear which, 
though flavorless, may fetch a guinea in London be- 
cause of its size and beauty. As a rule, however, 
Flavor is carefully safe-guarded. The leaves are kept 
trimmed so as to enable the sun to do its best in devel- 
oping an aroma. 

Outside of France the finest collection of espalier 
fruit trees I have seen is on Paderewski's estate, at 
Morges, on the Swiss side of Lake Geneva. It is sur- 
prising what a variety of forms the trees can be made 
to assume, as the fancy of the cultivator decides. 



BREAD CRUST VERSUS CRUMB. 

Although the publishers of this book, when they 
asked me to write it, generously allowed me as much 
elbow room as I might desire, I must resist the tempta- 
tion to dwell much longer on the details of French gas- 
tronomic leadership. To exhaust the subject would 
require a whole volume much bigger than this. Before 



286 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

closing this long chapter, however, I must dwell briefly 
on three more important kinds of food — bread, butter, 
and cheese — in the making of which the French excel. 

Unlike ourselves and our English cousins, they par- 
take of nothing but bread and butter for breakfast, 
wherefore it is not surprising that they take particular 
pains to have these good. Bread is also eaten at other 
meals much more freely than in other countries, includ- 
ing Germany and Austria, which alone rival France in 
the making of it. 

The best French bread is made in such a way that to 
have it in prime condition it must always be fresh. At 
all hours, therefore, one sees boys hurrying along the 
streets with baskets loaded with tall loaves. Without 
exaggeration, these loaves are often a yard long, but 
no thicker than a man's forearm. This is the Parisian 
bread par excellence, and what is most characteristic 
about it is that it is practically all crust. 

Bread is regarded as the staff of life — an English 
writer, Winslow, called it so as long ago as 1624 — and 
it has become so more and more in recent centuries. It 
is therefore of the utmost interest to know how the 
French, who admittedly know more about good food 
and the best cooking than any other people in the 
world, bake their bread. They bake it, as I have just 
said, in such a way that it is nearly all crust. 

Nearly all crust! And the French, it is needless to 
say, dote on this crust. For the crumb they have no 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 287 

liking; often you may see a Frenchman poke out with 
his thumb what little crumb there is and leave it on 
his plate. 

How different this from the practices prevalent 
among the least gastronomic of civilized nations — the 
English and the Americans ! 

The English way was graphically described in the 
"Observations on Mastication" which Dr. Campbell 
contributed to the London "Lancet" (July and Au- 
gust, 1903): 

"Witness the fashion of eating bread-and-butter at 
any place of refreshment, and the last thing you will 
be served with is a plateful of crusts of bread. Many 
establishments, indeed, make a regular practice of giv- 
ing away their crusts as unsaleable. Thus, the rectan- 
gular loaves used for bread-and-butter in the aerated 
bread-shops are cut transversely into slices, each loaf 
thus yielding two end crusts which are put into baskets 
for the poor, only the soft crumby pieces being re- 
served for the customers." 

Similar practices prevail in the United States and 
Canada. 

The lowest biological specimen — mere gastronomic 
protoplasm — is the pale, ten-dollar-a-week clerk whose 
deadly substitute for bread is the half-baked dough 
("butter cake") he eats at lunch time — a dyspeptic 
mess without the suspicion of a crust on it. His taste, 
unfortunately, is shared by some of the well-to-do. 



288 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

whose education has been neglected. Two youths 
walked into the breakfast room of an Italian hotel one 
morning and sat down at the table next to ours. The 
first thing they did was to push away the nicely 
browned crusty rolls and ask the waiter if he had any 
"soft bread." He had none, of course. He should 
have told them — I came near doing it myself — that 
those Italian rolls, though not equal to the best 
Parisian, had much more flavor and were much more 
digestible than the home-made crumb they were crying 
for — like babes for pap, though their teeth looked 
sound. 

In many New York hotels and restaurants, imita- 
tions of Parisian loaves or rolls are now placed on the 
tables. Some of them are quite good — a great im- 
provement on the ordinary American bread — yet most 
of the diners look at them askance. In downtown 
lunch places, if you fee the waiter regularly, he will not 
insult you by putting a crusty end piece on your plate. 
I always fee well, and therefore have the greatest diffi- 
culty in making the waiters believe that I sincerely, 
honestly and truly prefer an end piece — a particularly 
brown one at that. Some of them look at me with the 
incredulous expression of the farmer who, on seeing a 
giraffe, exclaimed, "There ain't no such animal !" 

It is needless to say that I prefer the goldenhued end- 
piece because I find it infinitely richer in flavor than the 
crumb. It is for the same reason, principally, that the 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 289 

French insist on having crusty bread. There are other 
reasons — they may not be aware of them but instinc- 
tively they act on them. Let me give them in the words 
of a distinguished medical man — the same Dr. Camp- 
bell, Physician to the London Northwest Hospital, 
whose words I have just quoted. "Loaves," he writes, 
"should be shaped so as to give a maximum of crust 
and a minimum of crumb, and should be baked hard. 
Such loaves are quite as nutritious as the ordinary ones, 
and much more digestible, containing as they do an 
abundance of dextrine and not a little maltose, and 
compelling efficient mastication, especially if eaten, as 
they should be, without any fluid. A lady who has 
been catering for a large number of girls gives the 
bread in this way, and she tells me that there is keen 
competition for the most crusty portions" 

The words I have italicized are of the utmost sig- 
nificance. They show that if English — or American — 
girls, or boys, or women and men — prefer crumb to 
crust, it is not owing to innate depravity but to lack of 
opportunity to learn better. Give them a chance to 
ascertain the superiority of crust to crumb and they 
promptly take to it as if they were in Paris born. 

They cannot be blamed for neglecting American 
crust, for the crust of the ordinary American bread 
actually is inferior to the crumb, being tough, leathery, 
and flavorless. Rut the American crumb is nearly 
always indigestible. The moral of the story is that 



1/ 



290 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

we should discard it in favor of Parisian crusty bread, 
boycotting every baker who does not honestly try to 
surround his loaves with crisp, toothsome crust. 

Ordinary American bread is greatly improved in 
flavor and digestibility when it is toasted. Toasting 
is the conversion of crumb into crust. It is resorted to 
daily by hundreds of thousands of Americans who, 
either knowingly or instinctively, adopt this way of 
avoiding the soggy bread which ruins the stomach 
and undermines the health. On this point let me 
cite the words of another medical expert, Dr. Alexander 
Bryce, author of "Dietetics," "Modern Theories of 
Diet," "The Laws of Life and Health," etc., endorsing 
the views of Russia's most eminent physiologist: 

"Pavlov demonstrated that the chewing of fresh, 
moist bread [such as most Americans insist on having] 
produced no secretion of saliva worth mentioning, but 
dry bread caused the saliva to flow in large quantities. 
Stale bread, crust of bread, toast, zwieback (double- 
toasted bread), and plenty of biscuit compel fairly pro- 
longed mastication with plenty of saliva, while soft 
bread is usually bolted with no production of diges- 
tive juice of any consequence." 

Besides the yard-long loaves referred to, the French 
have an endless variety of breads, one of the best of 
them being the crescent-shaped "croissants" usually 
served with the morning coffee. Different provinces 
and towns have their own special kinds, but Paris is the 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 291 

paradise for bread-eaters; elsewhere, the bread is not 
so uniformly excellent, though nearly always better 
than that served in most other countries. 

While the preponderance of crust over crumb is the 
most important aspect of Parisian bread, there are a 
number of other things to which it owes its excellence. 
For a high-class product it is important to select flour 
made of wheat which has a particularly fine flavor. 
The Flavor is also largely affected by the milling, the 
way the dough is made and kneeded, the quick or slow 
fermentation, the kind of oven used and its tempera- 
ture, the length of leaving the bread exposed to the 
heat, and many other things. 

A French baker's apprentice has to go through a four- 
years' course of studies before he is considered an ex- 
pert. Is it a wonder that such favorable results are 
achieved? But besides his knowledge he must have an 
infinite capacity for taking pains. Plus on se donnera 
de peine pour petrir la pate, plus on obtiendra de pain, 
et meilleur il sera. On n'a rien de bon sans travail. 
"The more trouble you take in kneading the dough, 
the more bread you will get, and the better it will be. 
You cannot get anything good without work." 

So say the authors — there are three of them — of the 
"Nouveau Manuel Complet du Boulanger," published 
in Paris by L. Mulo. It is a book of 626 pages with 93 
illustrations. Resides an introduction which gives a 
bird's-eye view of the history of baking, there are ten 



292 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

chapters treating exhaustively of wheats and flours and 
their adulteration; on the making of dough and the dif- 
ferent kinds of leaven; on troughs and ovens; on dis- 
eases of bread; on the peculiarities of the breads of 
various countries, including, of course, those of France, 
Austria and Germany as the most important. 

Summing up their conclusions, the authors of this 
encyclopedic work say, under the subhead, "Signes 
Caracteristiques d'un Pain Bien Fabrique," "Well- 
made bread must be light, well-raised and well-puffed 
up. Its color must be a particular yellow, shading into 
brown; it must be resonant when it is struck; its sur- 
face must be smooth, the inside full of cavities and 
grandes crevasses; its crumb white, very spongy and 
very elastic." 

HOW THE BEST BUTTER IS MADE. 

"If I were king," exclaimed a Sicilian shepherd boy, 
"I would have goosefat with my bread every day." 

While the ancient Greeks and Romans already made 
many varieties of bread, butter was known to them 
only as a medicine, olive oil being generally used in 
place of it in the preparing of meals. 

It was probably in Italy that really palatable butter 
was first churned, and very good butter is made in that 
country to-day; (that poor Sicilian boy had evidently 
never tasted any, else he would have preferred it even 
to goosefat!) but the best butter in the world is mar- 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 293 

keted in Paris. Not once, during half-a-dozen so- 
journs in that city, have I had butter served which it 
was not a pleasure to eat. 

While bad butter, such as most Americans eat daily, 
seems to be virtually tabooed in France, there are of 
course many degrees of excellence. In May, 1912, 
we visited a number of the leading Paris restaurants 
with the special object of studying these degrees. 
Everywhere the butter was very good, but the best, 
my wife and I agreed after repeated trials, was served 
at the Bceuf a la Mode. I therefore asked the head- 
waiter to find out from the dairy just how it was made. 
He did so, and received in reply a letter which is here- 
with reprinted in a translation: 

In response to your communication of the twentieth I take 
pleasure in answering your questions. Our butter is always 
made with the cream of the previous day and after this cream 
has fermented twelve hours. In this way to-day's milk is 
skimmed at about noon and the cream is cooled to 37-40 de- 
grees [Fahrenheit], then it is put in a place where it rises to 
42°-47° [Fahrenheit] and at this temperature it is kept as 
nearly as possible till the next morning, when it is churned. 

This method is a satisfactory one, and our butter is right. 

Believing that these directions will prove to be what your 
customer wishes I beg you to receive my best salutations. 

Marchand. 

The information given in this letter relates to one 
point only, as that was the only point I had inquired 
about. 



294 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

What I wanted to know was whether this super- 
excellent butter was made of sweet cream or of sour 
cream. 

Edwin H. Webster, Chief of the Dairy Division, 
states in No. 241 of the Farmers' Bulletins, issued by 
the United States Department of Agriculture, that 
"practically speaking, all butter used in this country is 
churned from sour cream. Sweet cream butter to most 
users tastes flat and insipid." He adds that the 
American dairyman, when his cream is not sour, de- 
liberately makes it so by adding a "starter," which is 
nothing more nor less than "nicely soured milk." 

In the Paris bookstalls we bought everything we 
could find as to the French practices in this respect, and 
furthermore we spent hours in the Bibliotheque Na- 
tionale studying the documents relating to it. 

D. Allard, Professeur Departmental d' Agriculture, 
says in his book "Le Beurre" : "It is generally remarked 
that in the regions which produce the finest and best- 
liked butter, la Normandie and la Bretagne, great care 
is taken to let the cream turn sour before it is churned. 
There is here certainly a result of fermentation, for one 
can, as we have said, impart these qualities to sweet 
cream by adding select ferments. 

"Besides this, fermentation gives another advantage : 
it makes the cream easier to churn and increases the 
yield of butter. 

"One must not go too far, however. The farmers 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 295 

know very well that the cream of a whole week gives 
a butter of unpleasant flavor. 

"It is therefore the uniformity of fermentation that 
ensures uniformity in the production of butter; which 
explains the importance of this question." 

Another writer, V. Houdet, Ingenieur-Agronome, 
Directeur de PEcole Nationale des Industries Laitieres 
de Mamirolle, says in his book "Laiterie, Beuerrerie, 
Fromagerie" (fourth edition, 1912) : 

"No matter whether the cream has been obtained by 
letting the milk stand in a low temperature or by means 
of a separator, it does not, if churned at once, yield 
anything but a sweet butter, of pure taste but without 
bouquet and without finesse. 

"In order that the butter may have the aroma, and 
particularly the nutty flavor which the consumers desire 
and which considerably increases its market value, it is 
necessary that the cream should ferment, should be- 
come soured, before it is churned, for it is particularly 
on this treatment, this maturation (ripening), that all 
the qualities of the product depend. 

"While the cream is fermenting, the sugar of milk 
it contains is changed into lactic acid which reacts in 
the measure of its production on the glycerides, sapon- 
ifies them while liberating the volatile acids which 
impart to the butter its perfume and make it keep 
better. 

"At the same time, as with all fermentation, it is 



296 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

necessary to stop in time; an excessive development of 
acid would yield a strong butter, rapidly undergoing 
a change and becoming rancid." 

Director Houdet also points out, as did Professor 
Allard, that by souring the cream the yield of butter is 
"very appreciably increased." 

Judging by these remarks, the French way is like the 
American : the cream is ripened (soured) before churn- 
ing. Must we, therefore, conclude that the enormous 
difference (apart from the salt question) between the 
average American and the average French butter is due 
chiefly to American carelessness in regard to a number 
of details, particularly the degree of acidity and the reg- 
ulation of the temperature which the French authors 
just quoted declare to be of the utmost importance in 
the manipulation of the cream while ripening*? 

Or is our butter usually so inferior because so much 
of it is marketed after undergoing cold storage, whereas 
the French get theirs fresh, as they do their poultry"? 
Years ago the State Railway began to run special but- 
ter trains from Normandy, Brittany, and the La 
Rochelle district, which reach the Paris market early 
in the morning, refrigerating cars being used in summer, 
so that the butter always arrives in perfect condition. 

Doubtless, such differences help to explain the in- 
feriority of our butter; but a question of even greater 
importance which we must now consider, is this : Is it 
true that the best butter owes its fine flavor to the 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 297 

ripening of the cream — the churning of sour cream in- 
stead of sweet*? 

The fact that dairymen in France as well as in Amer- 
ica do use fermented cream does not necessarily prove 
this to be the case; for, as we have seen, there are two 
other very important reasons for ripening the cream: 
sour cream is more easily churned, and it yields more 
butter than sweet cream does. This being the case, 
most dairymen, being human, would naturally be 
tempted to use acid cream even if it were possible to 
make a still finer butter with absolutely sweet cream. 

That this is possible, is the belief of many experts and 
epicures. A German lady in Berlin, who has had much 
experience, informed me that sweet-cream butter was 
in that region preferred by those who could indulge 
their appetites all they liked, whereas the sour-cream 
butter was ordered by those who wished to curb the 
appetites of their customers (in taverns, &c.). An 
English official, Francis Vacher, remarks in "The Food 
Inspector's Handbook," in which he gives the results of 
his experiences in sampling, that "it seems superfluous 
to say that butter of fine flavor cannot be made from 
sour cream. Yet much butter is made from sour 
cream, particularly in small farms and dairies." 

United States Government and State officials have 
given much attention to this subtle question. While 
Edwin H. Webster, Chief of Dairy Division, Bureau 
of Animal Industry, attests, as we have seen, that 



298 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

"practically speaking, all butter used in this country is 
churned from sour cream," * the Assistant Chief, 
Harry Hayward, 2 admits that "but a very small per- 
centage of all dairy butter made is of really high 
grade." Bulletins 18 and 21 of the Iowa Agricultural 
Experimental Station contain the results of tests made 
by G. E. Patrick, F. A. Leighton, D. B. Bisbee and W. 
H. Heilemann, showing that butter made from sweet 
cream retains its flavor better than butter made from 
sour cream. 

In June, 1909, the U. S. Bureau of Animal Industry 
issued Bulletin 114, in which the bacteriologist, L. A. 
Rogers, and the chemist, C. E. Gray, give the results 
of three years' study of this problem. They found that 
butter made from ripened (sour) cream, both pasteur- 
ized and unpasteurized, develops, in storage, fishy and 
other flavors typical of storage butter; that butter 
made from unripened, unpasteurized cream always de- 
veloped a cheesy or rancid flavor; but that the butter 
made from 'pasteurized cream without starter usually 
retained its flavor with little or no change. Even at 
32 ° F., where all the ripened butter showed decided 
changes, the sweet-cream butter deteriorated very lit- 
tle. Everything showed that "some factor having a 
deleterious influence on the butter was developed with 

1 "Butter-making on the Farm," Farmers' Bulletin No. 241. 

2 Facts Concerning the History, Commerce, and Manufacture of 
Butter. Bureau of Animal Industry No. 56. Both these pamphlets 
contain much information of value to butter-makers. 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 299 

the ripening of the cream"; and this whether the acid 
developed normally in the cream or was added to it, as 
a "starter." Further: "Butter can be made com- 
mercially from sweet pasteurized cream without the 
addition of a starter. Fresh butter made in this way 
has a flavor too mild to suit the average dealer, but it 
changes less in storage than butter made by the ordi- 
nary method, and can be sold after storage as high- 
grade butter." 

Still another official of the Department of Agricul- 
ture, L. A. Rogers, bacteriologist of the Dairy Division, 
contributed an important document in favor of sweet 
cream butter. 1 

He pointed out that a large part of the butter made 
in the central creameries in which the cream is received 
in a sour or otherwise fermented condition develops the 
peculiar oily flavor of mackerel or salmon. After a 
series of investigations lasting several years he testified 
that "in all cases in which the records were complete it 
was found that those experimental butters which be- 

1 Fishy Flavor in Butter. Circular 146, Bureau of Animal Industry, 
20 pages, 1909. In September, 1912, the Department of Agriculture 
published another document, Bulletin 148 of the Bureau of Animal In- 
dustry, by L. A. Rogers, S. C. Thompson, and J. R. Keithley, in which 
"the superiority of butter made from pasteurized sweet cream is again 
demonstrated" in making butter for storage — for which most American 
butter at present is made. Attention is also called to the fact that 
pasteurization of cream serves as a protection to the health of the 
consumer by destroying such bacteria as those of tuberculosis and 
typhoid fever, "which are known to survive for long periods in butter 
made from unpasteurized cream." 



3oo FOOD AND FLAVOR 

came fishy were made from high-acid cream"; and that 
"fishy flavor may be prevented with certainty by mak- 
ing butter from pasteurized sweet cream." 

The same authority informs us that in our central 
creameries "the cream is usually received in a very acid 
condition" — surely a most unfortunate circumstance, 
inasmuch as the experts, including the French, are, as 
we have seen, agreed that a high degree of acidity spoils 
the butter. And now we come face to face with the 
all-important question: Does a low degree of acidity 
really improve the butter, as Professor Allard and Di- 
rector Houdet maintain it does'? 

In other words, is the delicious flavor of the best but- 
ter actually due to the lactic acid developed by the ri- 
pening of the cream *? 

Dairy Chief Webster admits that "there are un- 
doubtedly desirable flavors in cream that do not come 
from the development of acid. Just what these are is 
not known at the present time, but the rich creamery 
flavor, or, as it is sometimes described, the nutty flavor, 
of a fine quality of cream is a combination of acid and 
other flavors." 

The "nutty" flavor is found particularly in May 
and June butter. The German biologists, H. W. 
Conn and W. M. Esten, who made careful studies of 
the ripening of cream which they published in Nos. 2 1 
and 22 of the "Centralblatt fur Bakteriologie" (1901) 
found that "the peculiar flavor of June butter, which 




iAAJvU**-- 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 301 

is so much desired by the butter-maker, is not due to 
the development of the common lactic bacteria." 

This brings us back to Paris and the Bceuf a la 
Mode. It was in May that we found the butter there 
so very delicious, and May is the month when the grass 
in France is greenest, juiciest, richest in flavoring pos- 
sibilities. After collecting a large amount of material 
relating to the influence of food in varying the quality 
and Flavors of meats (which will be presented in Chap- 
ter XII), I have come to the conclusion that it is to this 
rich spring food that the nutty flavor is chiefly due. 

As long ago as the middle of the last century epicures 
guessed what made the Flavor of spring butter so good. 
In the first volume of his Gastropkie, Eugen Baron 
Vaerst declares that "mountain butter is the best. 
March butter is particularly good because of the grass 
fodder the cows get. Summer butter is less good, were 
it only because of the heat and the annoyance to which 
the animals are subjected by torturing insects. . . . 
Winter butter tastes of straw and other winter feed." 

The assertion that mountain butter is the best, re- 
minds me of an episode in Bayreuth where, one summer, 
the family that gave us lodging and breakfast had the 
butter brought down every morning fresh from the 
mountains by a peasant girl. You pay in Germany 
for as much bread and butter as you eat. The first day 
we ate all that was given us and asked for double the 
amount next morning, and once more double that for 



302 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

the third day. It was as good and sweet and tempting 
as ice cream. The incident is worth mentioning as a 
hint to dealers and butter-makers how they might 
quadruple their business by supplying people with fresh 
butter, unsalted and made of sweet cream, as was that 
Bayreuth mountain butter. 

In future discussions of this subject it will be neces- 
sary to make it clear just what is meant by sweet cream 
and sour cream. If, as the two German bacteriologists 
referred to say, there are some acid bacteria present in 
milk as it is drawn from the cow, then there is no such 
thing as absolutely sweet cream; and, chemically 
speaking, the cream we put in our coffee twelve or 
twenty-four hours later is still less so. But physiolog- 
ically speaking, that is to our tongue, such cream still is 
sweet and remains sweet under ordinary atmospheric 
conditions for several days; that is, it does not taste 
sour and does not clot in the coffee cup. From the 
physiological point of view, therefore, the cream from 
which the best butter we found in Paris was made was 
sweet — absolutely sweet to the tongue, whatever the 
acidimeter may have indicated. 

From the foregoing remarks any dairyman who 
wishes to get rich quick can gather what he must do. 
Another point must be borne in mind in making butter 
which is not to be eaten at once. Bulletin 71 of the 
Iowa Experiment Station calls attention to the fact 
that to preserve the quality (Flavor) of the butter, it 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 303 

is not enough to pasteurize the cream; the water also 
must have its germs killed by being heated to a certain 
degree and then cooled again. The experiments made 
showed that butter made from pasteurized cream and 
washed in pasteurized water kept normal just twice as 
long as butter made from unpasteurized cream and 
washed with unpasteurized water, even though well- 
water was used. 

CHEESE AS AN APPETIZER. 

While there is but one way to make perfect butter 
there are many ways to make perfect cheese. Butter is 
always butter, varying only in the degree of palatabil- 
ity, whereas from a pail of milk can be made hundreds 
of varieties of cheese, each perfect in its way. Every 
country has its own, differing from those of other coun- 
tries and provinces, as the costumes and customs differ. 
The chief difference lies in the Flavor, and this is due 
to a variety of causes, one of them being the source of 
the milk. The Laplander makes several kinds of 
cheese from reindeer milk, while in some parts of Italy 
buffalo cheese is eaten. Goat cheese is diversely made 
in Germany, France, Italy and other countries, while 
for some of the finest cheeses, including genuine 
Roquefort, sheep supply the milk. By far the most im- 
portant animal, however, is the cow. 

What would Europeans and Americans do without 
the cow? It is possible to get along without her. 



304 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

When I visited Japan, less than a quarter of a cen- 
tury ago, the first experiments in the production of 
milk, butter, and cheese were being made in the 
Hokkaido, with a herd of fifty imported cows. 1 The 
courtesy of the Governor-General enabled me to test 
the products, and I found them very good. But owing 
to scant and expensive pasturage, Japanese epicures 
will never be able to depend much on cows; and think 
what they miss ! No veal, no beef, no suet, no cream, no 
butter, no cheese ! Think of the endless uses we make of 
these, alone, or in thousands of culinary combinations ! 
Nevertheless, we still have much to learn concern- 
ing the diverse uses to which at least one of the products 
of the protean milk pail can be put. We make above 
300,000,000 pounds of cheese a year, worth over 
$30,000,000; but there is less to boast about its quality 
than its quantity. We are strangely monotonous and 
unoriginal. About three-fourths of our cheese is an 
imitation of the English Cheddar, while the rest con- 
sists mostly of imitations — generally very poor ones — 
of Swiss, Dutch, Italian, or German cheeses, or the 
French Camembert, Roquefort, and so on. Have we 
no gastronomic imagination? Shall we permit not 
only the epicures but the peasants of Europe to look 
down on us for our lack of it*? We have, to be sure, a 
few specialties, such as the Pineapple, the Brick, Isigny, 
and some special varieties of cream cheese; but for a 

1 See the details in the chapter on "American Sapporo," in my "Lotos 
Time in Japan." 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 305 

nation of nearly a hundred millions, we make a very 
poor showing indeed in this branch of gastronomy, as 
in so many others. 

To a patriotic epicure it is humiliating to peruse Bul- 
letin 105 of the Bureau of Animal Industry, entitled 
Varieties of Cheese. It contains, on 72 pages, descrip- 
tions and analyses of all the domestic and foreign 
cheeses about which information could be found in the 
literature bearing upon the subject. The authors are 
C. F. Doane, of the Dairy Division, and H. W. Law- 
son, of the Experiment Stations. The number of 
cheeses described by them is 242. Of these 63, or 
more than a fourth of the whole number, are French. 
Germany follows with 40, and England comes third 
with 24. Switzerland is credited with 20. Italy 
contributes 19, Austria (with Bohemia, Hungary and 
the Tyrol) 17, and Holland 8. These are the leading 
cheese producers. 

France, as was to be expected of the chief gastro- 
nomic nation, heads the list in the matter of quality as 
well as quantity. Few epicures would deny that the 
best three cheeses made anywhere are Camembert, 
Roquefort, and Brie. Other world-famed kinds are 
Pont-PEveque, Neufchatel, Mont D'Or, Gruyere, Port 
du Salut. Among the less-known kinds are some which 
are almost if not quite as good as the more familiar 
varieties. 

A pound of cheese made of unskimmed milk has 



306 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

twice the nutritive value of a pound of beef. It is 
characteristic of the gastronomic French people that, 
notwithstanding this fact, the best cheeses made by 
them, for themselves and the rest of the world, are 
valued and intended much less as food than as relishes, 
to be consumed in very small quantities. 

The French custom of using cheese as an appetizer, 
to be eaten at the end of a meal, has been adopted the 
world over. Usually one thinks of appetizers (hors 
d'ceuvres) as being served at or near the beginning of a 
meal; but think the matter over and you will see that 
an appetizer is even more useful at the end, as a harm- 
less stimulant to keep up a steady flow of saliva. 

It is not a mere accident that the three favorite 
French cheeses are those that have the most piquant 
and stimulating Flavor. This Flavor is due chiefly to 
molds, which are specially cultivated with great skill 
and patience. In Camembert and Brie the mold is on 
the rind and gradually works its way in, till the whole 
is permeated by it. In Roquefort the rind is clean of 
mold, which is started and developed in the inside. 

Besides these molds, which, of course, differ in the 
several varieties, there are other sources of Flavor, such 
as the salt added to the curd, certain fatty acids, and 
ammonia-like bodies, these being particularly notice- 
able in well-ripened Camembert; but what chiefly de- 
termines the characteristic Flavor of these cheeses is 
their private and particular kinds of mold. 



FRENCH SUPREMACY 307 

Perhaps some day the French will erect a statue to 
Flavor in Food. To the many illustrations given in 
these pages of the intelligence they exercise and the 
trouble they take to secure it, let me add one more — 
the making of Roquefort cheese. 

We need not dwell on the first stages of the process, 
the heating and cooling of the milk, the adding of the 
rennet at a certain temperature to curdle it, and so on, 
as these do not differ materially from the ways of mak- 
ing other cheeses. Sheep's milk is used for the genuine 
article, but Roquefort made elsewhere of cow's milk is 
so similar in taste to the original article that no doubt 
remains as to the all-importance of the mold. 

This mold is secured by making bread of wheat and 
barley flour to which have been added whey and a little 
vinegar. This bread is kept in a moist place for a 
month or longer till it has become moldy through and 
through. Then the crust is removed and the moldy 
crumbs are placed between layers of the cheese curd. 

The romantic part of the story now begins. In the 
neighborhood of the town of Roquefort there are many 
grottoes, or natural caverns, steadily ventilated by a 
cool, moist current of air. Into these the cheese is taken 
for the ripening process. There is a great deal of salt- 
ing and scraping to prevent the mold from growing on 
the rind. To favor its development in the inside, 
fresh air is provided by piercing the cheese with ma- 
chinery having up to a hundred fine needles. Thus it 



3o8 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

gradually acquires its green marbling and the 
piquancy which makes the epicure's mouth water. 

Roquefort cheese has been famous for over two thou- 
sand years. The ancient Romans were very fond of it, 
as Pliny relates, and imported it in large quantities. 
The demand increased from century to century, until 
half a million sheep were required to supply the de- 
mand and four hundred factories were kept busy. To- 
day, enormous quantities of imitation Roquefort are 
made in various countries. Some of it is quite tasty, 
but epicures will continue to ask for the original, and 
it is right that the law should protect them and the 
makers by compelling imitators to put "Roquefort 
Type" on their labels. 

To a good many persons the piquancy of Roquefort 
does not appeal. Few, however, fail to succumb to 
the wiles of Camembert. Its popularity is attested by 
the fact that New York hotels alone use 30,000 of 
these cheeses a week during the season. There is a 
demand at present for about 4,000,000 Camemberts 
from the United States alone, and sometimes Caen and 
Havre are unable to supply the demand. Many at- 
tempts to manufacture Camembert have been made 
in America. The president of one of the largest pure 
food companies told me he had spent $30,000 in the 
attempt to produce a satisfactory Camembert; then he 
gave it up and began to import it. You can import 
cheeses but you cannot import or reproduce local flavors. 




VIII 



EPICUREAN ITALY 



THE CRADLE OF MODERN COOKERY. 

HE fact that Roquefort cheese 
was relished by Roman epicures 
twenty centuries ago indicates 
that French gastronomy is not 
entirely a product of modern 
times. Yet it was not till the 
reign of Louis XIV (who died 
in 1643 that France began to 
lead the world in this branch of civilization. The 
cradle of modern culinary art was Italy. Katharine 
of Medici brought its higher branches from that coun- 
try, which, in the sixteenth century, was supreme in all 
the fine arts, the chef's included. 

Italian cookery differed in those days from that of 

other countries as French cookery, with its entremets, 

309 




310 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

ragouts, and salmis, its diverse light viands and deli- 
cacies differed in latter centuries from that of other 
parts of the world. What gave the Italian cooks their 
supremacy was that they were alive to the importance 
of Flavor. Montaigne expressed admiration of these 
same cooks "who can so curiously temper and season 
strange odors with the savor and relish of their meats." 

Is it a wonder that the reform was hailed with de- 
light, Voltaire going so far as to exclaim: Un cuisinier 
est un etre divin? 

Venice was the gate by which Oriental luxuries en- 
tered Italy. At the same time there were culinary 
traditions which came to the Italians of the Middle 
Ages direct from their own ancestors. Sicilian cooks 
were favored by the ancient Romans just as French 
chefs are in modern Europe. Among the Greeks, also, 
the cooks from Sicily were in great demand, and 
Sicilian cookery was proverbially good. The Careme 
of his time was the Sicilian Archestratus, who, we read, 
"traveled far and wide in quest of alimentary dainties 
of different lands," and who, some 2250 years ago, 
wrote a long poem on gastronomy. 

Three centuries ago Burton referred to the fondness 
of the Italians for frogs and snails, two delicacies now 
universally associated with Gallic epicureanism. The 
French, to be sure, have by their special care in the 
rearing of these creatures (there are books on the sub- 
ject) made them peculiarly their own. 



EPICUREAN ITALY* 311 

Though now playing second fiddle to France, the 
Italians are still holding their own among the leading 
gastronomic nations. They have plenty of reasons 
for liking their own cooking, nor are they alone in en- 
joying it. In New York and other American cities 
Italian restaurants are always well patronized and not 
only by Italians, and the same is true in London, and to 
some extent in Paris. 

Let us briefly pass in review the most desirable foods 
and dishes of the Italians to see what we can learn 
from them. 

OLIVE OIL AND SARDINES. 

Col. Newnham-Davis declares that "really good pure 
olive oil is almost unknown outside the boundaries of 
Italy. An Italian gentleman never eats salad when 
traveling in foreign countries, for his palate, used to 
the finest oils, revolts against the liquid fit only for the 
lubrication of machinery he so often is offered in Ger- 
many, England, and France." 

This is somewhat misleading. While inferior or 
adulterated olive oil is certainly served in many other- 
wise respectable European restaurants, even in Paris, 
I have eaten delicious olive oil made in France. Span- 
ish oil usually has a flavor too strong for most of us, 
but when it is carefully refined this is not the case. 
In Lyons I was once the guest of a family of epicures 
who preferred Spanish oil to any other, and their 



312 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

salads certainly were delicious. But, on the whole, 
the finest olive oil comes from Italy. 

The superiority is purely a question of Flavor, for 
all olive and other table oils have the same food value. 

Many factors combine to make Lucca and other 
Italian olive oils so pleasing to the palate. The soil is 
specially adapted to the cultivation of the olive tree, 
and care has been taken to select the best varieties. 
The old Roman epicures, who gathered their delicacies 
from all parts of the world, already preferred Italian 
olive oil, especially that of the variety known as the 
Licinian and grown in Campania. 

No less important than soil and variety is the proper 
harvesting of the crop. In Asia, as well as in Greece 
and in many parts of Spain, much of the oil produced 
owes its inferior quality to the fact that the olives are 
knocked off the trees with poles or shaken off. The 
Italians who make the best oil pick the olives by hand 
and deliver them at the mills without bruises. 

These same Italians subject the olives to four suc- 
cessive pressings. The oil from the first, known as 
virgin oil, is the finest, and as it is also the most ex- 
pensive, unscrupulous dealers may and do sell the yield 
of the following and increasingly inferior pressings 
under that name. Eternal vigilance is everywhere the 
price of getting pure food and the best of it. 

There is food for thought in the official information 
that Spain exports large amounts of olive oil to France 



EPICUREAN ITALY 313 

and Italy and that the greater part of this is reexported 
from those countries, largely in the form of mixed 
oil. In 1911 Spain exported 90,419,723 pounds of 
olive oil, valued at $7,397,977- 

Much good has no doubt been done by the Italian 
Society of Permanent Chemical Inspection, for the 
analysis of food products and official certification of 
purity. The honest grower of and dealer in olive oil 
suffers much from the competition of the cheap oils. 

In the interest of honesty a law was passed in Spain 
in 1892 providing that all cottonseed or rapeseed oil 
imported into that country must be denatured by the 
addition of lj per cent, of wood tar or petroleum and 
also that all imported olive oil found to contain cotton- 
seed oil or other similar products shall be rendered 
unfit for consumption in the same manner. 

The dangerous nature of the competition to which 
the olive grower is exposed is illustrated by a remark 
made by commercial agent, Julian Erode, in the Con- 
sular and Trade Reports (August 29, 1910.) Writ- 
ing from Alexandria he says: "The natives, most of 
whom are Mohammedans and large oil consumers, 
have been educated to substitute cottonseed oil for the 
olive oil they formerly used, and the latter is now 
found only in the houses of the wealthy. The change, 
which has taken place in Egypt, and which is now 
taking place to a great extent in Turkey, can likewise 
be made in Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria, Morocco, and other 



3H FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Mohammedan countries if proper efforts are put forth." 

Bearing in mind the remarks in a preceding chapter 
regarding cotton seed oil the word "educated" in the 
above quotation is painfully sarcastic. It is purse 
versus palate, cheapness versus Flavor, which remains 
for the wealthy alone to enjoy and get the benefit of. 

It is in the sardine industry, however, that olive oil 
is fighting its hardest battles. The oil in a box of 
sardines costs, if genuine, more than the fish in it. 
Consequently, efforts are being made to substitute 
cheaper oils. From regions where sardines are canned 
in wholesale quantities come reports of annually de- 
creasing imports of olive oil, with a corresponding in- 
crease in the imports of cheaper oils. Were it not for 
the public's "prejudice" in favor of Flavor in oil, the 
olive would doubtless be kicked out altogether. I have 
read in a consular report that "cottonseed oil has been 
selling about fifty per cent, cheaper than the olive oil 
used in packing. This saving, the packers say, would 
be given to purchasers of their goods." 

The dear, generous, philanthropic packers ! To 
think that it is not for their own sake but to help the 
consumers that they are so very anxious to give up 
olive oil, and to persuade the Government not to make 
them state on the label what kind of oil they use! 

They point out — disinterestedly, of course! — that 
cottonseed oil is "claimed to be physically as pure as 
olive oil, just as digestible, and even a better preserva- 



EPICUREAN ITALY 315 

tive." The question, therefore, "is simply up to the 
manufacturers of cottonseed oil to educate the public 
to these facts and destroy the prejudice against their 
product." 

In England, in the summer of 1912, a different kind 
of education was carried on by the importers of a special 
brand of sardines. In big advertisements the public 
was informed that a sardine is not necessarily a pilchard 
but may be the chinchard, the herring or the small 
mackerel, or the brisling which fattens on the small 
shellfish of the Norwegian fjords. All of these be- 
come sardines only when they are cured. The flavor 
depends in part on the kind of fish canned, the food 
they eat, the time of the year they are caught and, in 
part, on the way they are cured. For the better 
grades olive oil is used, but for the cheaper class trade 
coarse olive oil is taken, or cottonseed or peanut oil. 
Of olive oil there are fourteen grades and the best of 
these is the right kind if you want the best sardines. 

Here were interesting things for British sardine buy- 
ers to ponder. They were thus warned not to continue 
to ask the grocer simply for sardines, but for sardines of 
a particular kind put up by a reputable firm. If the 
firm which boasted that it used the best fish and the 
best of the fourteen grades of olive oil has a wise head 
it will live up to its claims. In such things honesty is 
by far the best policy — in the long run. 

Smoked sardines are almost, if not quite, as good as 



316 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

those simply packed in olive oil. They are usually 
marketed as Kieler Sprotten and should be better 
known in this country. 

FRIED FISH AND FRITT^I MIST0 

Doubtless the word sardine comes from the Italian 
island, Sardinia, around which the small fish used for 
canning abound. 

Small fish of various other kinds are a favorite 
article of diet all over Italy. In Venice, for instance, 
among the most characteristic sights are the numerous 
little shops in which piles of fried fish are exposed for 
sale inside the open window, if window there be. 
They are eaten with slices of polenta, or thick corn 
meal mush, cut off with a thread from a huge loaf. 
The gondolier, as he passes by, exchanges his penny 
for some of this food and departs munching it with 
evidence of perfect satisfaction. 

The oil used for frying these little fishes is not, as 
a matter of course, the virgin oil of the month of May. 
But it is infinitely better than the "cooking-butter" 
sent to the kitchens of thousands of wealthy Americans. 
It is more economical, too, than our frying baths. 
When the French composer Massenet, a noted gourmet, 
visited Italy for the first time, he enjoyed a meal con- 
sisting of "an excellent snail soup and fish fried in 
oil which must have done service in the kitchen at least 
two or three years." 



EPICUREAN ITALY 317 

It is acknowledged by epicures of all lands that in 
the art of frying, the Italian cook ranks supreme. In 
the more expensive eating houses butter (not "cooking 
butter") is often used, but the national way is to fry 
in oil, and when the oil is prime the result is delicious. 
An American girl, who married an Italian, writes to me 
from the Riviera Ligure : "Oil is used for frying, and it 
seems to me everything is fried — even green vegetables 
get a bath of hot oil. When butter is used it is for a 
condiment." 

Fried food in England and America is usually greasy 
and indigestible because the cook does not understood 
that a deep frying-kettle is best, that the oil (or what- 
ever liquid is used) must at the start have a tempera- 
ture of nearly 500 ° Fahrenheit, so that a thin film may 
form immediately over the outside of whatever is to be 
fried, thus keeping in all the juices and flavors; and that 
whatever oil may adhere to the food after it is fished 
out must be allowed at once to drain off on a napkin 
or otherwise. The Italian cooks seem to know all 
these things instinctively, the result being that their 
fried foods come up to the test given by Mary Ronald, 
who remarks in the Century Cook Book that properly 
fried Saratogo chips can be eaten out of hand without 
soiling one's gloves. 

Fritta mista is one of the chefs d'ceuvre of the 
Italian cook. The first time I ate one was in Rome. 
We went to a little restaurant marked in Baedeker 



318 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

with a star. After eating the mixed fry containing 
sweetbreads, shredded artichoke bottoms, brains, cocks- 
combs, truffles and other delicacies, done to a turn, we 
decided that the restaurant deserved two stars. 

It will be noticed that the favorite fritta mista con- 
sists largel)^ of things that Americans have only re- 
cently learned to use or still despise. The value of 
sweetbreads, which used to be thrown away, has been 
discovered — they are now almost worth their weight 
in radium. Brains would be equally relished by nine 
Americans out of ten — if not by all — if they would 
taste them fried as served to me on August 22, 1912, 
at Como. I give the date because it was a memorable 
gastronomic event. 

The Italians are like the French in relishing these 
"trimmings." Mary Ronald relates an amusing story 
of a French family who moved into one of our West- 
ern towns where calves' heads, livers, brains and sweet- 
breads were still undiscovered luxuries. They wrote 
home that the price of living there was nominal be- 
cause the foods which they most prized were given 
away by the butchers as food for dogs. 

Many years ago Sir Henry Thompson tried to per- 
suade the British to substitute olive oil for lard. His 
advice affords at the same time an amusing glimpse of 
a certain culinary custom: "Excellent and fresh olive 
oil, which need not be so perfect in tint and flavor as 
the choicest kinds reserved for the salad bowl, is the 



EPICUREAN ITALY 319 

best available form of fat for frying, and is sold at a 
moderate price by the gallon for this purpose at the 
best Italian warehouses. Nothing, perhaps, is better 
than clarified beef dripping, such as is produced, often 
abundantly, in every English kitchen; but the time- 
honored traditions of our perquisite system enable any 
English cook to sell this for herself, at small price, to 
a little trader round the corner, while she buys, at her 
employer's cost, a quantity of pork lard for frying 
material, at double the price obtained for the dripping. 
Lard is, moreover, the worst menstruum for the pur- 
pose, the most difficult to work in so far as to free the 
matters fried in it from grease; and we might be glad 
to buy back our own dripping from the aforesaid little 
trader at a profit to him of cent per cent, if only the 
purchase could be diplomatically negotiated." 

MACARONI THE REAL STAFF OF LIFE. 

Next to olive oil the best edible thing Italy gives to 
the world is macaroni in its many varieties. We im- 
port more than four million dollars' worth of it yearly, 
and we have learned, by raising durum wheat, to make 
a fair imitation of the products of a Gragnano factory ; 
but most of all this is probably eaten by the Italians 
who have come to live with us. 

In the average American household macaroni is far 
too seldom served. In one of its varieties, it might 
advantageously replace potatoes served at one at least 



320 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

of our three daily meals. Just why we should have 
potatoes served at every meal I have never been able 
to understand. Most desirable substitutes, besides 
macaroni, are boiled chestnuts, rice and hominy, the 
rice and hominy being particularly good when fried. 
Not that I would say a word against potatoes. Baked, 
fried, boiled, steamed, mashed, hashed and browned 
or with cream — in all these and many other ways they 
are good, and it would be a calamity to be deprived of 
them because they not only make an excellent accom- 
paniment to other foods, especially to meats, but 
are also most tasty when served as a separate course, 
in the French style. But enough is as good as a feast. 
What we need is variety; and sometimes, when we 
have to economize on meat, we need something more 
nutritious than potatoes. 

Potatoes impose much work on the kidneys, where- 
fore those afflicted with rheumatism should avoid them. 
Besides, macaroni has many times the value of potatoes 
as a flesh former. It owes this value to the large 
amount of gluten in it, the potato being useful chiefly 
as a heat-producer. 

Gluten is a word the meaning of which everybody 
should know. 

When wheat flour is kneaded in a current of water 
most of the starch is removed and there remains a 
sticky substance which is called gluten. It is the 
nitrogenous, or flesh-building, part of the flour. In or- 



EPICUREAN ITALY 321 

dinary wheat flour there is enough of this gluten to 
make the dough cohere and to give the bread a food 
value apart from that coming from the large percentage 
of starch in it which is a heat-producer. In macaroni 
wheat there is a smaller percentage of starch and a 
much larger percentage of gluten. Genuine macaroni 
which is made of the best durum wheat flour has nearly 
twice the amount of gluten as the highest grade wheat 
flour. 

Bread is generally called "the staff of life," but in 
Italy macaroni is the staff of life, and it has a much 
better title to this designation than bread because it 
contains so much more of the body-building gluten. 

"Gluten is to wheat what lean is to meat," as Charles 
Cristodoro has tersely put it. "When you think," he 
writes, "of macaroni flour, it is like going to the 
butcher and buying a roast and getting less bone, less 
gristle, and less fat, but about twice as much lean for 
the money. A butcher who would give his customers 
twice as much lean meat as another butcher would get 
all the trade in the neighborhood." 

In other words, macaroni is both bread and meat. 
It is not merely a side-dish, as many American and 
English housewives fancy, but a complete meal in 
itself, although, owing to the mildness of its Flavor, 
it is generally relished more when cooked with to- 
matoes, or a little chopped meat, or, better still, some 
cheese or butter or both, because, like bread, macaroni 




Macaroni Drying 



EPICUREAN ITALY 323 

is deficient in fat, some of which it needs to make a 
dish well balanced as to nutritive ingredients. 

For lunch there is perhaps nothing quite so desirable 
as a dish of marcaroni thus prepared. At present it is 
difficult to get such a dish properly cooked, except in 
our Italian and French restaurants. But I believe the 
time will come when every American and English busi- 
ness man and woman will have a chance to eat an 
appetizing and easily digestible lunch in a macaroni 
cook-shop. 

This point seems of such great importance that I 
shall emphasize it by citing Sir Henry Thompson's 
advice. 

"Weight for weight, macaroni may be regarded as 
not less valuable for flesh-making purposes, in the ani- 
mal economy, than beef and mutton. Most people 
can digest it more easily and rapidly than meat; it 
offers, therefore, an admirable substitute for meat, par- 
ticularly for lunch or mid-day meals, among those 
whose employments demand continuous attention dur- 
ing the whole of a long afternoon. To dine, or eat 
a heavy meal in the middle of the day is, for busy men, 
a great mistake: one nevertheless which is extremely 
common, and productive of great discomfort, to say 
the least." 

Macaroni might, this eminent dietician suggests, be 
prepared at the restaurants "as a staple dish, in two 
or three forms, since it sustains the power without tax- 



324 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

ing too much the digestion, or rendering the individual 
heavy, sleepy, and incompetent afterwards." 

All these remarks refer to macaroni generically — the 
whole marcaroni family, which is a big one. Its best 
known members are spaghetti, and vermicelli; but 
there are many others equally good and known only to 
Italians. Among these are fidelini, stellete, tagliarini^ 
lasagnetti, and many others. Altogether, I am told, 
there are about fifty varieties of 'pasta — which is the 
generic name for all of them. 

The most delicately and deliciously flavored of them 
all is tagliatelli^ but it is hard to get. Beware of sub- 
stitutions ! 

"Subito! Subito!" exclaimed the waiter at the 
Vapore restaurant in Venice when, for the first time, 
I had ordered this — to me — unknown dish and finally 
asked him why he did not bring it. He had gone out 
specially to buy some fresh butter to cook it with, and 
when it came on the table — tagliatelli al burro — it was 
a feast for the gods. If you gave me the choice, at 
your expense, of all the dishes on the elaborate lunch 
bill of fare of the most expensive New York restaurant 
and tagliatelli al burro was one of them, tagliatelli 
with butter I would order. 

There is also such a thing as gluten bread, made for 
persons of weak digestion or troubled with diabetes; 
but it is said that one tires of this. 

No one ever tires of the macaronis. I could eat 



EPICUREAN ITALY 325 

a dish of them three times a day and smack my lips 
after each. 

To be sure, there is macaroni and macaroni. An 
Italian can tell the genuine by its smoothness, its clear 
yellow color, its hornlike toughness and general glu- 
tinous aspect. The genuine is not necessarily im- 
ported; a good brand is, as I have said, made in 
America of real durum wheat; but in this, as in all 
other things, eternal vigilance is called for; the world is 
full of gay deceivers. Macaroni made of ordinary 
wheat flour is poor stuff, but fortunately it is easily 
distinguished from the real thing. Being deficient in 
sticky gluten, it is not able, when it is subjected to the 
drying process, to bear its own weight and is therefore 
laid out flat instead of being "poled" — that is, thrown 
over reed poles on which it is exposed first to sunlight 
and then to damp cellars and shaded storehouses. 
Therefore, to get the real Italian Flavor, look for the 
flattened pole marks at the bend in the end of the 
macaroni. 

While macaroni is the national dish of Italy, it is as 
great a mistake to suppose that all Italians eat it three 
times a day, as it is to think that rice is the daily diet 
of all Japanese. Rice, in Japan, is a luxury to be served 
in the poorer families only on holidays, or in case of 
illness. Professor Chamberlain relates in his Things 
Japanese that he once heard a beldame in a village re- 
mark to another with a grave shake of the head, "What ! 



326 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Do you mean to say that it has come to having to give 
her rice 1 ?" the inference being that the case must be 
alarming indeed if the family had thought it necessary 
to resort to so expensive a dainty. 

In the same way it has been said about Italians that 
it is as accurate to assert they live on macaroni, as to 
assert that Americans live on turkey. Some do, many 
don't. 

When I arrived in Japan, some of the geishas were 
convulsed with laughter over my clumsy efforts to eat 
with chopsticks. I found it a good deal like fishing — 
never knew when I'd get the next bite. Macaroni 
eating is less difficult to the inexperienced, yet many 
Americans seem to be in doubt as to how it should be 
done. (Maybe that is one reason why it is not served 
as often as it should be.) The approved Italian way 
is to gently spear a stick of it with the fork, convey the 
end to the mouth, and suck it in without much waste 
of time. An American observer was so impressed by 
this process that he came to the conclusion that the 
Italians have reels in their throats. 

Another way is to wind the paste round your fork 
till there is a wad that just fits your mouth. But there 
is no loss of Flavor if the macaroni is cut into con- 
venient pieces and eaten ad libitum any way you please. 

The most astonishing sight I witnessed during my 
seven visits to Italy was at Naples. We had hired a 
cab in front of the hotel and told the driver we wanted 



EPICUREAN ITALY 327 

to see the people enjoying their open air life. He took 
us to a street where everything, including cooking and 
eating, was done outside the houses. Presently he 
stopped at a place where macaroni was being cooked in 
a huge kettle. A beggar ran up and offered to eat 
some right out of the boiling water if we would pay 
for it. The cook ladled a huge portion into a tin 
basin and the man swallowed it all in a few seconds, 
steaming hot. His stomach must have been lined with 
asbestos. The driver had in the meantime, also at 
my expense, taken a large glass of wine ; but instead of 
being in league with the cook, as I supposed he would 
be, he told me to "give him a lira — quite enough," and 
drove off rapidly before the macaroni man could vo- 
ciferate his demands for more. 

Mabel Phipps Bergolio, the American lady whose re- 
marks on frying were quoted on another page, hardly 
thinks it true that the Italians are too poor to eat 
macaroni. "My husband thinks it depends upon the 
part of Italy they live in. Here, the contadine eat 
minestrone — a thick soup made of oil, garlic, and all 
kinds of vegetables which they cultivate here. In 
Piedmont rice is the principal food, because it is grown 
there in large quantities. In the mountains near here, 
our maid tells me, they eat minestrone and chestnuts 
all the year round and nothing else. In the South, 
Naples, etc., macaroni is eaten and is cheaper there 
than in this part of the country on account of the flour 



328 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

which is raised there. Garlic and oil are used in pre- 
paring it, and this, with fruit, seems to be the food 
of the meridionale. In the North potatoes and polenta 
are eaten in large quantities in regions where the soil is 
adapted to raising tubers and corn." 

COOKED CHEESE IN PLACE OF MEAT. 

It would be sufficient honor for one nation to pro- 
vide the world with the best olive oil and the real staff 
of life. But Italy lays claim to another gastronomic 
distinction. 

It is generally conceded that the Americans and also 
the English, French, Germans, Russians and Scandi- 
navians, eat more than is necessary, especially meat. 
In a previous chapter attention was called to the fact 
that, in the cooking of the future, meat is destined, for 
diverse reasons, to be used largely, if not chiefly, as a 
condiment to be added to equally nutritious but 
cheaper foods. The Italians, more than any other na- 
tion, have shown how this can be done without any real 
deprivation. 

When our greatest man of letters, Mr. Howells, was 
consul in Venice and gathering the material for his 
delightful book on life in that city, he was impressed 
particularly by the surprisingly small scale on which 
provisions for the daily meals were bought and the 
general absence of gluttonous excesses: "As to the 
poorer classes, one observes without great surprise how 



EPICUREAN ITALY 329 

slenderly they fare, and how with a great habit of 
talking of meat and drink, the verb mangiare remains 
in fact for the most part inactive with them. But it is 
only just to say that this virtue of abstinence seems to 
be not wholly the result of necessity, for it prevails 
with other classes which could well afford the opposite 
vice. Meat and drink do not form the substance of 
conviviality with Venetians, as with the Germans and 
the English, and in degree with ourselves; and I have 
often noticed on the Mondays at the Gardens, and 
other social festivals of the people, how the crowd 
amused itself with anything — music, dancing, walk- 
ing, talking — anything but the great northern pastime 
of gluttony." 

After describing the meals and referring to the great 
market at the Rialto and the way provisions are dis- 
tributed throughout the city, he says: "A great Bos- 
tonian, whom I remember to have heard speculate on 
the superiority of a state of civilization in which you 
could buy two cents' worth of beef, to that in which 
so small a quantity was unpurchasable, would find the 
system perfected here, where you can buy half a cent's 
worth." 

Half a cent's worth of meat will not go very far, 
even in Italy, but for a few cents' worth you can get 
enough to impart the Flavor of veal, lamb, or chicken 
to a pot of farinaceous food or a dish of vegetables, and 
that is all a true epicure needs to be happy. 



330 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Throughout Itaty, especially in the South, meat is 
used sparingly. Large joints are seldom cooked, be- 
cause of the effect of the warm climate in spoiling ani- 
mal food rapidly. But there is another food which 
does not thus deteriorate and which is therefore used 
largely as a substitute for meat, and that is cheese. 

To speak of cheese as a substitute for meat seems 
odd to those who- — like most Americans — have been 
brought up to look on cheese with French eyes, as a 
dessert. The Italians also have cheeses — notably Gor- 
gonzola, a variety of Roquefort — which are eaten at 
the end of a meal; but more characteristically Italian 
is the use of cheese as an ingredient of various cooked 
dishes, which take the place of meat. 

While the statement made by one writer that the 
Italians put cheese into everything they eat is an ex- 
aggeration, it is true that many of their dishes are thus 
enriched; and it is this enriching of foods with cheese, 
to make up for the absence or scarcity of meat, that 
constitutes one of the great lessons Italy is teaching 
the world. Gastronomically, this lesson is as valuable 
as what France has taught the world regarding the 
dessert usefulness of ripened cheese as an appetizer; and 
from an economic point of view it is much more im- 
portant, because meat is becoming dearer every year, 
whereas cheese is not only cheaper but more nutritious 
than meat. 

More nutritious — yes, twice as nutritious. In 



EPICUREAN ITALY 331 

Farmers' Bulletin 487, entitled Cheese and its 'Economi- 
cal Uses, two of our Government's nutrition experts 
published a table (p. 13) based on a series of experi- 
ments which show that "cheese has nearly twice as 
much protein, weight for weight, as beef of average 
composition as purchased, and that its fuel value is 
more than twice as great. It contains over twenty-five 
per cent, more protein than the same weight of porter- 
house steak as purchased, and nearly twice as much 
fat." 

Thus does science justify the culinary practices of 
Italy, and explain how it happens that the sturdy sons 
of that land, instead of being, as many foolishly sup- 
pose, idlers, habitually indulging in dolce far niente, 
can and do accomplish the hardest manual labor, 
notably railway building — abroad as well as at home 
— on a diet which contains little or no meat. 

Among the first things that strike one on visiting 
Italy the first time is the universal custom of putting 
grated cheese in the soup. 

Being hot, the soup dissolves the cheese at once; and 
this is a point of great importance. There is an im- 
pression the world over that cheese is indigestible, and 
this is correct so far as raw cheese is concerned, unless it 
is taken in small quantities at dessert and carefully 
munched with a hard cracker or a crusty roll of bread. 
Cooked cheese, however, is easily digested — provided 
the cook knows her business and does not follow the 



332 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

British custom, graphically described by the eminent 
chemist, W. Mattieu Williams, of making, for in- 
stance, "macaroni-cheese," which is "commonly pre- 
pared in England by depositing macaroni in a pie-dish, 
and then covering it with a stratum of grated cheese, 
and placing this in an oven or before a fire until the 
cheese is desiccated, browned, and converted into a 
horny, caseous form of carbon that would induce 
chronic dyspepsia in the stomach of a wild-boar if he 
fed upon it for a week." 

How it should be prepared, it is not the mission of 
this volume to indicate. The best cook books reveal 
the method and so does the Farmers' Bulletin (No. 
487) just referred to. This bulletin should be, in- 
deed, bound and placed in the kitchen of every Amer- 
ican and English home, as it goes into the subject in 
much more detail than any of the cook books. There 
are in it pages on Kinds of Cheese Used in American 
Homes, The Care of Cheese in the Home, The Flavor 
of Cheese, Nutritive Value and Cost of Cheese and 
Some Other Food Materials, Home-made Cheeses, 
Cheese Dishes and Their Preparation, Cheese Soups and 
Vegetables Cooked with Cheese, Cheese Salads and 
Sandwiches, Cheese Pastry, etc. 

Especially important are the pages devoted to a de- 
scription of "Cheese dishes which may be used in the 
same way as meat." Under this head we find, among 
many other things, and with the recipes in full, refer- 



EPICUREAN ITALY 333 

ences to cheese sauces, corn and cheese souffle, macaroni 
and cheese, baked rice and cheese, cheese rolls, nut and 
cheese roast, Boston roast, baked eggs with cheese, 
cheese omelet, fried bread with cheese, cheese with 
mush, cheese croquettes, oatmeal with cheese, etc. 

Doubtless the best cooking cheese is Parmesan; but 
when the genuine article cannot be obtained in bulk 
(never buy it grated, in a bottle) it is better to use 
Swiss or even American cheese (cheddar). The Dutch 
Edam is also excellent for the kitchen, as good as when 
eaten raw. Of the Italian uncooked cheeses for the 
table, the best are Gorgonzola and, particularly, 
Caciocavallo. This is not, as its name suggests, made 
of mare's milk. It looks like a rag doll, is similar to 
Edam in consistency and has a very pleasant and 
unique Flavor owing to its being slightly smoked. Be- 
ware of American imitations, cured with "liquid 
smoke." 

In times of meat scarcity and high prices it is well to 
remember that hard-working men can (as experiments 
have shown) fully sustain their strength for months on 
the cheapest of all products of the dairy — cottage 
cheese made of skim milk, to which, just before eating 
it, some cream is added for fat and flavor. Strange to 
say, in all the literature on this matter I have never seen 
any reference to the transformations to which cottage 
cheese can be subjected. By standing a few days, it 
gets a ripening flavor that appeals to epicures, and if 



334 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

it is then boiled it assumes a consistency like that of 
Port Salut, making another pleasant variant. 

A helpful little volume for those who wish to know 
how the Italians use cheese in cooking and how they 
make a number of other national dishes is Antonia 
Isola's "Simple Italian Cookery." Here are receipts 
showing how risotto, and other rice dishes, ravioli, 
polenta, gnocclii of farina or potato, are made (all of 
them delicious and desirable in American and English 
homes, particularly the gnocchi), and how eggs, fishes, 
vegetables, and meats can be cooked in tempting Italian 
ways. The chestnut, as a matter of course, is a fre- 
quent ingredient in the dressings and the pastry. 

BIRDS, TOMATO PASTE AND GARLIC. 

While the Italians are sparing in their use of meat, it 
must not be supposed that they do not know how to 
make the most of it when they do indulge in it. They 
are born cooks — it 's a great pity none of them are ever 
to be found in our "intelligence offices" — and their ex- 
perts know as well as the great French chefs how to 
prepare a savory roast, stew, broil, entree, or dessert. 
In the making of sauces, the blending of meat and veg- 
etable flavors, the cooking of fish and shellfish, one also 
finds much variety and local Flavor on the peninsula. 
Details as to those points may be found in abundance 
in the forty pages Col. Newham-Davis devotes to 
this country in his "Gourmet's Guide to Europe." 



EPICUREAN ITALY 335 

To enjoy the national and particularly the local va- 
rities of Flavor, it is well to take only a room in an 
Italian hotel and eat in the restaurants. I always do 
this, paying a little more for the room, which is only 
fair to the host. The trouble with these hotels is that 
the table d'hote, though usually good, is not Italian but 
French, and in Italy you want something different, to 
get an idea of the variations in flavor of the spaghet- 
tis, the minestrone soups, the gnocchis, the risottos, and 
so on. Sometimes the hotel has attached to it a locally 
conducted restaurant, in which case it is needless to 
hunt for another. 

For one of their gastronomic habits the Italians are 
justly denounced by other Europeans — their slaughter 
of millions of birds, largely blackbirds, siskins, green- 
finches, and other song birds, that yearly seek a refuge 
among them on their flight to or from the north. All 
efforts to curb this slaughter have so far proved un- 
availing. The difficulty is double: the birds are very 
good to eat and the common people cannot understand 
our point of view. Lina Duff Gordon, in her book, 
"Home Life in Italy" (which takes the reader right into 
the kitchens and the market places), tells about one of 
the hunters: "Once, when he offered us a bunch of 
blackbirds strung together by the neck, which he said 
made an excellent roast, we seized upon the opportun- 
ity to deliver a lecture on the shooting of singing birds. 
He listened so attentively that we rejoiced at having 



336 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

made an impression on an important convert, until 
looking up with eyes very wide open, he exclaimed: 
'Ah! Sangue della Madonna! Then you have no sport 
in England !' " 

It is hardly fair to chide the Italians for making too 
much use of garlic, unless we include in our censure the 
French- -particularly those of the Southern provinces 
— and the Spaniards, who not only put it in their food 
but eat it raw in chunks. On this point I may be per- 
mitted to cite from my "Spain and Morocco" some re- 
marks on a peasant who drove me from Baza to Lorca : 
"At noon he took his lunch, composed of ten raw to- 
matoes, half a loaf of bread, a piece of raw ham, and 
a large bulb of garlic consisting of a score of bulblets, 
which he took one at a time to flavor his portions. It 
is doubtful if he expected another meal that day, and in 
watching him a brilliant theory came to my mind: — 
perhaps the poorer classes in Spain are so fond of gar- 
lic for the reason that they have so little to eat; for, as 
it takes several days to digest a bulb of it, they always 
feel as if they had something in their stomachs." 

In the best Italian restaurants, as in those of Paris, 
it is understood that garlic, while delicious for flavor- 
ing, is so only in homoeopathic doses. Moreover one 
can always dine without garlic by simply saying to the 
waiter, when ordering a dish, senz' aglio. 

Whether Italian peasants eat raw ham, as that Span- 
ish teamster did, I do not know. Ham is not an 



EPICUREAN ITALY 337 

Italian specialty. At Naples one may get the genuine 
smoked article, but it is so expensive that only the 
wealthy folk can afford it. But in his enthusiastic 
addiction to tomatoes that Spaniard was akin to the 
Italians. How they do love them — raw or cooked — 
more even than we do, if that be possible. Next to 
cheese, nothing is so frequently added to the macaronis 
as tomato sauce, either as we make it, or in the form of 
the paste which is one of the unique Italian products 
that ought to be better known in other countries. 

The best tomato paste comes from the Province of 
Naples, where it is made of a small variety of the fruit 
which has a special Flavor that is much relished. This, 
to be sure, they do not waste on foreigners. What is 
exported is, as we read in the "Daily Consular and 
Trade Reports" (Dec, 1910), usually not even second 
rate, but "of the third quality," which is "of course, 
very inferior, because it contains little tomato extract 
and is almost entirely liquid. There is no demand for 
it in the Italian market, and it is prepared exclusively 
for exportation to America, where it meets the require- 
ments of the immigrant peasants from Sicily. The 
latter, when at home, either do not use any tomato 
paste or consume a certain kind of hard tomato paste 
(conserva di pomidoro) which is made by the peasant 
women." 

Consul Hernando de Soto further informs us that 
"tomato paste of the first and second quality also is 



338 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

exported, though in much smaller quantity, from 
Palermo to the United States, where it is patronized by 
a more prosperous class of Italians and also, it is stated, 
by some Americans." 

Many more Americans would buy tomato paste were 
they sure of not getting the third-class article after pay- 
ing for the best, as happens with so many things we 
eat. 










IX 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 




mssaL 



COSMOPOLITAN CUISINE. 

IN the matter of cuisine the Ger- 
mans are the most cosmopoli- 
tan of all peoples; they learn 
eagerly from other nations, 
and sometimes improve on the 
original. They like variety; 
when traveling, unlike the 
English and Americans, they prefer things new to 
them, and it has been justly said that one of the 
Germans' chief objects in touring is to enjoy exotic 
pleasures of the table. 

At home they avoid monotony by frequently supping 
in restaurants or beer gardens, the whole family being 
taken there, including the dog, unless a great crowd is 
expected because of a special musical treat, in which 

339 



34-0 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

case the public is informed that "Hunde dilrfen nicht 
mitgebracht v:erden" 

And how enthusiastically these burghers discuss the 
diverse good things placed before them! A Berlin 
author maintains that three-fourths of all Germans, 
and four-fifths of their cousins, the Austrians, talk more 
about eating than about anything else, and that the 
most successful novels in their countries are those in 
which there are descriptions of banquets that make the 
mouth water. No need of preaching gastronomy to 
them! 

To deny that the Germans have a cuisine of their 
own, as some of their own writers have done, is folly. 
While they have set a good example in being willing 
to learn from their neighbors — as the Italians learned 
from the Orientals and the French from the Italians — 
they have also originated and improved a number of 
things gastronomic which deserve to be transplanted to 
other countries. 

A contributor to the "Frankfurter Zeitung" points 
out that "more than one dish which in Germany, France, 
and England is relished under a French name was orig- 
inated by German cooks." He exhorts these cooks to 
give the dishes they create German names, choosing 
such as a foreigner can pronounce. England has suc- 
ceeded in adding some of its food names — like beef- 
steak, Irish stew, mock-turtle soup, pudding, roast beef, 
toast — to the world-language, and the French have 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 341 

shown by their adoption of Lied, Concertmeister, 
Hinterland, Bock, etc., that they would not balk at 
German culinary terms. 

DELICATESSEN STORES. 

As a matter of fact some German terms have already 
become part of the world-language — among them 
sauerkraut, pumpernickel and the names of various 
sausages and cheeses. The most eloquent testimony to 
German international influence is, however, the 
ubiquitous delicatessen store. In New York there is 
one every few blocks, and these places are patronized 
by many who are not Germans. To be sure, few of 
these shops equal the originals in Munich, Dresden, 
or Berlin, in variety and gorgeousness of display. 

Edward Grieg, like most of the great composers, was 
an epicure. It is related of him that one of his favorite 
amusements was to gaze at the displays of good things 
in the delicatessen stores. One day, while lingering 
before one of these windows he said to the American 
composer, Frank Van der Stucken: "What an ideal 
symphony! How perfect in all its details, in form, 
contents, and instrumentation!" 

Grand gastronomic symphonies they are, indeed; 
and what is more, the appeal of these delicacies is to 
the palate as well as to the eyes. When a German 
pays his good money he wants something good to eat, 
and if he is fooled, woe to the culprit. Strict are the 



342 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

laws, and enforced they are, too. Officers of the health 
boards visit the stores at unexpected times, taking away 
samples for chemical analysis. Fines are inflicted for 
the least lack of obedience to the pure food law, while 
gross offenders may be punished by life-long imprison- 
ment with hard labor. 

The examiners, of course, visit not only the deli- 
catessen stores but the butcher shops, groceries, bakeries 
and all places where food is offered for sale. 

In Berlin there is a special institute for the inspec- 
tion of foodstuffs which is directly under the control 
of the police. It makes chemical and bacteriological 
examinations of things offered for sale. Purchasers 
who suffer from the ill effects of foodstuffs have the 
privilege of applying to the police, who promptly make 
an examination of the suspected article. This does 
not cost the complainant a penny and the expense to 
the city of this invaluable institute is only about $12,- 
ooo a year. 

Encouraged by the knowledge of these facts, a Ger- 
man may boldly enter any delicatessen store, confident 
of getting things that will taste good and do no harm. 
And what a variety of luxuries is spread out before 
him! 

Cold roast joints of all the butchers' meats are 
placed in line on the counter, with hams, raw or 
cooked, and sausages diverse, all eager to be sliced to 
suit. I say eager because these things — especially the 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 343 

sausages and the hams — taste so good that it surely- 
must give them altruistic joy to be eaten. Cold fowl 
is there, too, ready for the carving knife, or to be taken 
away whole. The Germans often lunch or sup on 
these sliced meats, huge platterfuls of which are 
brought on the table — Gemischter Aufschnitt — -and 
none of it is wasted, you may be sure. 

Chicken and fish salads diverse, including herring 
salad, and potato salad — one of Germany's great con- 
tributions to the world's gastronomic treasure — are at 
hand, as well as another international delicacy of Teu- 
tonic origin — sauerkraut, raw or cooked; and sauer- 
kraut is a delicacy; nor is it indigestible when cooked 
the right way and long enough. Proof of its high 
standing is provided by the fact that France's gastro- 
nomic high priest, Brillat-Savarin— whose famous 
work on the Physiology of Taste has become so popular 
that a penny edition of it is sold in the streets — puts 
it, with partridge, on the menu of one of three fine 
dinners he suggests. The French, indeed, are al- 
most as much addicted to the eating of sauerkraut as 
are the Germans. In England and America not a few 
persons foolishly sneer at it as "rotten cabbage." It is 
no more rotten than pickles are rotten, for it is simply 
pickled cabbage — cabbage pickled in its own juice plus 
salt, and soured by fermentation. 

The pickles eaten by Germans are not all sour; they 
like, almost better than the sour kinds, the dill pickles, 



344 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

which are cucumbers preserved in a liquid flavored with 
the blossoms and seeds of an umbelliferous Oriental 
plant, anethum, cultivated in German gardens for its 
spicy aroma. Teutons seem to take to this naturally; 
with others it is an acquired taste, like that for 
olives. 

Smoked or soused herrings, sprats, and diverse spiced 
fish (marinirt) are always on sale in the delicatessen 
stores, and they are acknowledged among the best 
specialties of Germany. Eel and other fish in jelly 
are other characteristic edibles the Fatherland has 
reason to be proud of; and have you ever eaten cold 
goose in an acidulated meat jelly 1 ? It is worth 
while going to Berlin, just to taste this Prussian 
Ganseweisssauer. 

Smoked Pomeranian goosebreast is always in stock; 
its taste is not unlike that of raw smoked ham and there 
is no danger of trichinosis, though, to be sure, that 
danger from eating ham has been reduced in Germany 
to a minimum by the strict system of meat inspec- 
tion. 

The heads and feet of calves, sheep, and swine, wild 
and domestic, are much in demand ; a wild boar's head 
often is the center of interest in the show window of a 
delicatessen store. Of course there are also canned 
meats and vegetables, with diverse fancy groceries and 
cheeses of various countries, together with crackers and 
breads of diverse shape, size, and color. But enough 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 345 

has been said to show that a German delicatessen store 
is a treasure house of appetizing foods, many of them 
peculiar to the Fatherland, and most of them agreeable 
to the palate of a real gourmet. 

It is possible that a thousand years hence Bismarck's 
fame as a statesman may have waned; but Bismarck 
herring will continue to be served in all lands until the 
seas are fished out. On a warm summer day, when 
you are not hungry and yet feel a vague longing for 
something piquant, try a Bismarck herring with potato 
salad. You will bless me for the advice. It is very 
good for the stomach, too, the doctors say. 

SAUSAGES AND SMOKED HAM. 

The French have excellent sausages and so have the 
Italians. They are hard to beat, and yet, in the matter 
of variety and general excellence, the Germans as 
makers of wilrste are supreme. 

Various are the tastes of sausage eaters, but all of 
them may be gratified west of the Rhine. I have be- 
fore me a book by Nicolaus Merges bearing the title 
"Internationale Wurst und Fleischwaaren Fabrika- 
tion." Concise directions are given in it for the making 
of more than a hundred and fifty kinds of sausages, all 
of which are manufactured in Germany, though some 
are of foreign origin. 

Why so many kinds of sausage*? There is not much 
difference in their nutritive value. They are made in 



346 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

different ways simply to secure variety in Flavor, to 
please all palates. 

The book referred to shows how this variety is se- 
cured. Different meats are used and these are di- 
versely blended, spiced, and cured. The possibilities 
are unlimited; the hundred and fifty varieties in the 
Merges volume are a mere fraction of the total number, 
nearly every locality having its special kind. 

Of liver sausages there are two dozen varieties, 
the cheapest being made from ordinary beef liver while 
the G'dnselebertriljfelwurst (goose-liver-truffle sau- 
sage) may cost a dollar a pound. Of sausages in which 
blood is used there are more than a score. These are 
cheap, and — well, if they cost nothing I would n't eat 
them. 

The biggest of all the sausages is the Cervelat made 
in Braunschweig (many German towns have become 
world-famed by the making of some particularly well- 
flavored sausage, cheese, cake, or beer). The Bruns- 
wick brand is compounded of beef and pork, both lean 
and fat. The Westphalian variety includes less beef. 
Some kinds of Cervelat exclude pork, containing only 
beef or veal. There is also a homceopathetic Cervelat. 
It is intended for convalescents, and has a minimum of 
fat and spices. A kosher Cervelat is made for Hebrews. 

Beef from old cows is not in the best repute, yet for 
the making of Salami it is preferred to the tenderloin 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 347 

of a young steer. (The toughest meat sometimes has 
the richest Flavor.) Salami hails from Italy, but 
special varieties of it are made in Germany, as well as 
in Holland, Switzerland, Russia, and Hungary. 

It is needless to give details regarding Plockwurst, 
Mettwurst, Knoblauchwurst, Knackwurst, Schwarten- 
magen, etc., in all their transformations. In some 
varieties anchovies, kidneys, or brains are used. 

Barenwurst is not often seen now, as bears are get- 
ting scarce. Horse meat of course is used (why not 4 ?) 
for cheaper sorts, and the bow-wow joke of the comic 
papers is not altogether without foundation. Ameri- 
can Indians agreed with the Chinese in regarding dog 
meat as a great delicacy — the dish of honor to be 
served to guests. Dog meat sausage may be quite legit- 
imate, as long as it is honestly labeled as such. 

There is a story of a wealthy Berlin butcher whose 
son had been promoted in the army by Moltke, and 
who, to show his gratitude, advised the Field Marshal 
never to eat sausage. But those days of uncertainty 
are past. Inspection is now so strict in the Fatherland 
that one can safely eat whatever is offered. 

When the eminent German novelist, Ernst von 
Wolzogen, visited the United States (1911) he ex- 
claimed, on the eve of departure, to a reporter for the 
New York "Staatszeitung" : "Great heavens, if you 
knew what an indescribable longing has often seized 



348 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

me in your country for a good German sausage ! No — 
for their food I cannot envy the Americans." 

Considering the large number of Germans in the 
United States it seems strange that they do not insist 
on having as good sausage made here as on the other 
side. But they do not. The home-made sausage is 
usually compounded of worthless scraps, and is apt to 
be indigestible. As for the "imported" Cervelat and 
other kinds, they are often so in name only — which 
explains that wail, de profundis, of Freiherr von 
Wolzogen. 

American sausages made after English or original 
recipes are generally spoiled by an excessive amount of 
sage. Sage should always be used homceopathically, 
else it overpowers all other flavors. Were I Czar in 
the realm of gastronomy I should forbid the use of sage 
altogether. 

The next time you go to Europe do not forget to 
make an automobile trip from Munich to Berlin, taking 
in Nuremberg on the way. We did that, with some 
friends, in the summer of 1912, and when we reached 
the city of Hans Sachs we steered straight for the 
Bratwurstglocklein, a little eating shop, known by name 
at least, to epicures the world over, though only one 
dish is cooked in it, and that dish, as the name indicates, 
is sausage. 

Five Wiirstchen, no bigger than your thumb, are 
served with a portion of sauerkraut. The cost is half 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 349 

a mark — twelve cents — a portion and you can have as 
many encores as you like. Some of us took four, and 
so tender and tasty were the little things, as well as 
the kraut that we had no occasion to regret it. After 
all, we were mere tyros, as our waiter informed us; 
he has known many a man to eat a dozen portions or 
more and not send for an ambulance — at least, that 's 
what he said. The number of portions served daily 
vary from 3,000 to 5,000; the record is 25,000 served 
on a day when there was a Sangerfest. 

Nuremberg has two other eating places similar to 
this, but the Bratwurstglocklein maintains its pre- 
eminence, owing to its traditions; for it was in its 
little rooms that the men who (with the aid of the 
Bratwurstglocklein) made that city famous — among 
them Sachs, Welleland and Diirer — used to gather for 
food and drink. 

After we had paid our bill — not a ruinous one for 
an automobile party — we started for the next town on 
our list, after buying a few boxes of the world-famed 
honey cakes (Lebkuchen) of the town. We all had 
seen the other sights of Nuremberg before. Besides, 
we were on a gastronomic trip, and discipline had to be 
preserved. 

Observation has convinced me that Americans would 
be as enthusiastic sausage eaters as the Germans are if 
they could get them as well made and cooked. In a 
large New York down-town restaurant you can see, on 



35o FOOD AND FLAVOR 

certain days, half the guests ordering "country sau- 
sages," which, though good, are not to be mentioned 
on the same day as those of the Bratwurstglocklein. 
The inference is inevitable that a lunch-room serving 
honest duplicates of the German delicacy would prove 
a gold-mine. 

The proprietor of another down-town restaurant who 
provides excellent little Frankfurters informed me he 
got them at a certain shop in which two butchers had 
successively made their fortune by simply manufactur- 
ing these honest little sausages and really smoking them 
instead of using "liquid smoke." It makes such a dif- 
ference to the palate as well as the stomach. 

Genuine Frankfurters are made of solid meat (not 
lungs) and they are always smoked. They are known 
as Frankfurters throughout the greater part of Ger- 
many and Austria, but in Frankfort they call them 
Wiener Wiirstel, to dignify them, presumably, as 
exotics. 

Smoked sausages and other meats are in great vogue 
among the Germans, whose addiction to them gives 
them the right to pose as true epicures. Do they not 
provide the whole world with smoked goose-breast, 
Hamburger Rauchfleish, and the best of all hams, the 
smoked Westphalian 1 ? 

In South Germany they have a special word for 
smoked meats, Geselchtes, or Selchware. The com- 
poser Brahms never missed a chance to get a dish of 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 351 

"G'selchtes" ; it gave him an appetite when nothing 
else would. 

Bismarck, the most famous of German gourmets, 
took great delight in feasting on smoked meats and fish 
— Spickgans, Spickaal, Schinken, &c. He knew as 
much about the different varieties and the places they 
came from as any dealer in delicatessen, as we know 
from the table talk recorded by Dr. Moritz Busch. 

Smoked Westphalian ham has carried the fame of 
Germany to the lunch tables of all parts of the world ; 
and not a whit inferior in Flavor is the Austrian va- 
riety, Prager Schinken. Raw or cooked, these are 
among the superlative delights of the epicure, ranking 
with caviare, Camembert, and canvasback duck. 

On the appetizing quality of property smoked meats 
which makes the mouth water and facilitates digestion 
I have already commented. 

German and Austrian hams owe their fame to the 
fact that they are smoked and otherwise cured scien- 
tifically, regardless of cost, with a view to developing 
the most delicate Flavor. 

The first thing to be noted is that the men who cure 
the meats do not dare to denature them (J. e., spoil 
their natural Flavor) by soaking them in solutions of 
chemicals which are not only injurious to health but 
which would make it possible for them to hide the pu- 
trescence of spoiled meats — as is so often done in 
America. 



352 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

The law on this point is very strict. By orders of 
the Imperial Federal Council, dated July 4, 1908, the 
following substances have been forbidden : Boric acid 
and salts thereof, formaldehyde, the hydroxides and 
carbonates of the alkaline salts, sulphurous acid and the 
salts thereof, the salts of hyposulphurous acid, hypo- 
fluoric acid and salts thereof, salicylic acid and its com- 
pounds, chloric acid and salts, and all coloring matter. 

Consul Talbot J. Albert, of Brunswick writes that 
"the German inspection laws, especially in regard to 
hams and all hog products are so strict that their adul- 
teration would be immediately detected, the products 
confiscated, and the manufacturer severely punished." 

The ingredients used in the curing of hams before 
they are smoked are salt, saltpeter, and pepper. The 
quantity of these and other ingredients and the method 
employed are business secrets difficult to ascertain. 

In America, sugar-cured ham is advertised in large 
letters. Sugar, no doubt, is a good preservative, and 
it is harmless, but somehow it seems as incongruous 
with meat as salt is with cream or butter. Ask an epi- 
cure if he would like his oysters with sugar, and see 
him shudder. In Germany, hams are seldom sugar- 
cured. 

"The Daily Consular and Trade Reports" for De- 
cember 8, 1909, contains such information on the sub- 
ject of smoked sausages and hams as the consuls in vari- 
ous German cities were able to gather. They found 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 353 

that sausage is smoked up to three or four weeks, unless 
it is to be eaten at once. The smoking makes it lose 
some weight and cost more — but what of that, as long 
as the Flavor is improved'? The American way is to 
save the full weight by using chemicals and then sell 
the denatured stuff as "smoked" meat. It is profitable 
to the packer. The consumer — well, it serves him 
right if he continues to buy such stuff without a pro- 
test. 

Of the contributors to the Consular symposium on 
smoked meats in Germany, Vice-Consul Frederick 
Hoyermann of Bremen gave the most informing ac- 
count. 

"The fresh ham is put into pure common salt (so- 
dium chloride) and is kept therein for about three 
weeks, whereupon it is washed and air-dried. After 
having been exposed to the air for about eight days it is 
ready for the smoking 'process, which lasts from six to 
eight weeks . It is hung up in the smoke of beech- 
wood chips, which must burn slowly so as not to create 
heat or evolve too much smoke. The ham must be 
smoked thoroughly but gradually, and must remain 
cool while undergoing the process. Thereupon it is 
cleaned and is then ready for use." 

Now note what the same writer says about the 
"quick-smoking" process : "Hams are smoked by a 
simpler and cheaper process, pine wood being used for 
smoking instead of beech, the time allowed for smoking 



354 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

is considerably reduced, and stronger smoke applied. 
Hams thus cured are, of course, inferior in quality, as 
they lack in Flavor and are not fit for export, because 
only high-class meats will pay the cost of transports 
tion." 

The so-called Westphalian hams do not all come 
from Westphalia. The name is generally applied 
to choice hams which have been smoked thoroughly but 
gradually in accordance with the methods indicated in 
the preceding paragraphs. 

One more important detail. The Germans know 
the value of feeding Flavor into food. As Consul Carl 
Bailey Hurst, of Plauen wrote: "The best and most 
durable hams are those of hogs which have been fed 
during the few weeks previous to slaughtering on acorns 
or corn." 

Juniper berries are sometimes thrown on the beech 
wood while hams are being smoked, in the belief that 
that still further improves their Flavor. Maybe it 
does — I have had no opportunity for comparisons. 
Possibly it is a mistake. The Germans, though they 
make the best hams and sausages in the world, are as a 
nation far from impeccable ; in the use of spices, in par- 
ticular, they often blunder grossly. It is surely an 
aberration of taste to mix cloves, bay leaves, cinnamon, 
caraway seeds, sage, or ginger with the preserving fluid; 
for these strong condiments destroy the individual 
Flavor of the meat. 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 355 

Excessive use of spices is the chief blemish of Ger- 
man cookery. Many otherwise well-made dishes are 
spoiled by the addition of pungent condiments which 
completely monopolize the palate. The excessive use 
of these condiments is a survival of medieval coarse- 
ness. I shall not dwell on this, however, or on other 
deplorable relics of the coarse appetite of former gen- 
erations, because the object of this book is not to point 
out the shortcomings of European nations but to call 
attention to practices in which they are ahead of us. 
Let us therefore proceed to another department of gas- 
tronomy in which the Germans (and their neighbors) 
can teach us useful lessons. 

LIVE FISH BROUGHT TO THE KITCHEN. 

The Paradise of fish-eaters is Copenhagen. New 
York and other American port towns could get some 
very important hints from the way things are done 
there. Before 1892 it was difficult to bring live fish 
into the town without contaminating them with sew- 
age and spoiling their flavor. In that year a general 
sewage system was constructed by which the city's sew- 
age is carried two kilometers out into the open sea, thus 
putting an end to the contamination of the ocean front 
and the harbor. The gratifying results of this reform 
were described by the London "Lancet's" representative 
at the Sanitary Congress in Copenhagen, October, 
1910: 



356 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

"This not only puts an end to the nuisances that used 
to arise, but enables boats full of live fish to come close 
to shore and right into the town by means of the fresh- 
water canals. In this manner at least the smaller fish 
are kept alive till the moment they are sold. Any 
number of wooden boats are pierced with holes and 
filled with fish; these boats just float on the surface of 
the water, and the living fish is taken out of them when 
wanted. But as every one cannot go to the water's 
edge to buy fish, there are water tanks on wheels and 
the live fish is brought to the doors of the people's 
houses. 

"Never before," this sanitarian continues, "have I 
been in a town where all the fish, whether cheap or dear 
is so beautifully fresh. The principal fish market was 
built by the municipality and is let to a wholesale fish 
salesman. It is a delight to see how clean and bright 
these premises are kept. There is no spreading the fish 
on slabs so that dust and dirt may settle on them. 
Very pretty tessellated tile tanks are filled with running 
water, and here the smaller fish swim about." 

In Berlin and other German cities the fish are also 
brought alive to the kitchen. An eminent artist who 
is also an ideal hausfrau, Mme. Gadski, informed me 
that she would n't think of buying a dead fish. "They 
are brought to the kitchen alive, and I reject those that 
are not swimming about," she said. 

The Germans are great eaters of fresh-water fishes, 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 357 

and there are ingenious arrangements for bringing them 
to market alive. 

The large fish of the ocean cannot, of course, be de- 
livered alive, but the transportation facilities are now 
so excellent that not only the more expensive kinds, like 
sole, turbot, and sterlet, but the cheaper sorts, like cod, 
haddock, plaice, and herring, are brought to city and 
town markets in prime condition. 

A German culinary authority specially calls atten- 
tion to the fact that the "ancient and fish-like smell" is 
a thing of the past. In the days when transportation 
facilities were less adequate this odor made it necessary 
to boil fish in two waters, throwing the first away. 
Now the cook has only the natural odor of the un- 
spoiled fish to deal with, which, being agreeable, is 
carefully preserved in the cooking. 

The fishing places off the German coast are visited 
daily by fast steamers to collect the catch. The boats 
are provided with refrigerating apparatus, and so are 
the express trains which at Stettin, Geestemmiinde, 
Cuxhaven, and other coast towns, take the fish from 
the boats and carry them at full speed to the cities all 
over the Empire. 

The same excellent arrangements for keeping the 
fish cold without spoiling their flavor by freezing them 
are to be found on German steamers. On the eighth 
day out on the Kaiserin August e Victoria I found the 
salmon as fresh-tasting as if it had just been caught. 



358 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

"How do you do it 1 ?" I asked Captain Ruser; and he 
explained the system — the refrigerating arrangements 
which, with steady ventilation, provide a frigid atmos- 
phere without actually freezing the fish or the meat. 

Such things cost time and money; but the Germans, 
being a gastronomic nation, consider them worth while, 
on sea as well as on shore: 

Hamburg sets a good example in showing what a 
municipal government can do in the way of providing 
the people with fresh fish and telling them what to do 
with them. The following is from the "Fremdenblatt" 
of that city; similar notices frequently appear in the 
newspapers : 

Sale of Cheap Sea Fish. "The Staatliche Fischereidirek- 
tion" informs us that on Tuesday, August 20, there will be 
on sale, at the known 150 shops, fresh haddocks — averaging f 
pound apiece — at 23 pfennigs [5§ cents] a pound. Besides 
this, many shops offer for sale fresh mackerel at twenty to 
twenty-five pfennigs [5 to 6£ cents] apiece, according to size. 
The mackerel is an excellent fish both for frying and boiling. 
New directions for cooking haddock in a variety of ways are 
contained in the illustrated booklet, "Fischkost," which is given 
free to purchasers at all the stalls. 

The Hamburgers are lucky in having the "net gains" 
of sea fishing placed before them at the earliest possible 
moment. With the aid of the arrangements just re- 
ferred to these fishes can, however, be bought in good 
condition as far away as Vienna. A few years ago the 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 359 

Austrian officials had a number of railway cars con- 
structed for the transportation of sea fish and also of 
live fresh-water fish. Germany has had such cars for 
decades, bringing fish not only from her own ports but 
from Holland and elsewhere. African eels are sent 
from Algiers to Marseilles and thence by express trains 
all the way to Berlin. 

Eels are usually despised in America and with good 
reason, for their scavenging habits often make them 
inedible. But there are eels that live on fresh food, 
such as small crustaceans at the bottom of the sea, and 
fish roe; and these are as good as any fish that swims. 
The large eels served in Berlin are as tender, juicy, and 
sweet-flavored as shad. When I was a student at the 
University of Berlin, one of my pet excursions was up 
the Spree, stopping at an inn where eels of medium size 
— blau gesotten, were served as a specialty. They were 
delicious, though they did look strikingly like snakes 
as they lay curled up on the plate swallowing their own 
tails. 

Not a few persons whose education has been ne- 
glected refuse to eat eels, believing them to be allied 
to snakes, when in truth they are no more related to 
snakes, zoologically, than whales are. And even if 
they were of the snake family what of it, if they taste 
good*? The eminent Norwegian explorer, Dr. Lum- 
holtz, who spent several years among the Australian 



360 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

wild men, told me on his return, while we were enjoy- 
ing a dish of terrapin together at Henry Villard's, that 
much as he liked this reptilian delicacy, of which we 
Americans are so proud, he thought that python liver, 
which he had had frequent occasion to eat, was quite 
as good. 

While studying at Heidelberg I did not neglect, it 
is needless to say, the Wolfsbrunnen, famous for its 
trout. I have eaten trout, caught by myself in many 
parts of the world, including the Maine woods, Lake 
Tahoe in California, and Trout Lake in the State of 
Washington; but none tasted better than a dish served 
in Berlin at a sumptuous new hotel oddly called Board- 
ing Palace. 

All over Germany fish-breeding in ponds is an im- 
portant industry. Bavaria alone had, in 1909, over 
33,000 acres of such ponds, and probably has many 
more now; Saxony had 200,000 acres, while Silesia had 
nearly 60,000. The total area of fish ponds in the 
Empire probably does not fall far short of a quarter of 
a million acres. 

Carp are grown in special abundance, and German 
carp are very good to eat, especially when they have 
been artificially fed and fattened with rice, potatoes, 
fish meal, or dairy refuse. 

Other kinds grown are perch, pike-perch, tench, eels, 
and trout of several kinds, including the American 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 361 

rainbow. The trout are fed shellfish, slaughterhouse 
refuse, horse meat, fish meal, and specially prepared 
foods. 

Everything is done with German thoroughness, and 
the results once more prove gastronomy to be a good 
guide to wealth. 

The profits are increased by selling the fish direct 
to consumers. Fish-growing associations have been 
formed for this special purpose all over the empire. 

As these ponds are scattered all over the country it 
is possible to have everywhere fish just out of the 
water; and, as I have said before, the poorest variety 
of fish just caught has a finer Flavor than the best va- 
riety that has been kept a few days by any method 
whatever. I have lived in Germany three years and 
do not remember ever to have had on my plate 
insipid fish, such as we are doomed three times out 
of four to eat in our own country, chiefly because the 
fish are frozen. 

Dr. Wiley insists in his "Foods and Their Adultera- 
tion" (1911) that "the consumer is entitled to know 
whether in any given case the fish he purchases is a 
fresh or a cold storage article. At the present time, 
in so far as I know, there are no national, state or 
municipal laws whereby this fact can be ascertained. 
Without raising the question of comparative value or 
palatability there is no doubt but what the consumer is 



362 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

entitled to know the character of the fish he purchases." 
Big Frauds in Fish: Under this head the "Na- 
tional Food Magazine" of Chicago has published some 
remarks by G. J. L. Janes, which vividly depict the 
outrages perpetrated in the United States by cold- 
storage men. 

"The legal regulations governing the sale of fish 
are so lax that we have decided to stop handling fresh 
fish altogether rather than suffer the unjust competition 
and be a party to so many deceptions on the public. A 
dealer can take any kind of frozen fish, thaw it out, and 
mark it strictly fresh-caught fish, and if he so desire, 
sell it as such. This is being done all along State Street 
in Chicago to-day. It is not only a fraud and cheat 
on the public, but it is dangerous. Fresh-caught hali- 
but costs 12 cents a pound wholesale. There is 20 per 
cent, waste in it, because of the fins, skin, etc., and 
hence we have to add 20 per cent, to the cost in order 
to break even on it. Nevertheless certain stores are 
advertising strictly fresh-caught halibut at 10 J cents a 
pound retail. Of course this is frozen halibut they are 
selling. That can be bought at 8 cents a pound whole- 
sale. The same is true of other fishes, especially white 
fish. That costs 22 cents a pound when fresh. Cer- 
tain stores advertise "fancy white-fish winter caught" 
at 10 cents retail. There is no mention of its being 
frozen or cold storage fish, and so the public is deceived. 
It is dangerous economy to buy cheap fish. No other 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 363 

food deteriorates so rapidly after it comes from the 
water. Especially is this true of white fish, which 
spoils quickest of all. Freezing breaks up the tissues, 
and when it once is thawed it decomposes with enor- 
mous rapidity." 

As long as the American public patiently tolerates 
such impositions on purse and stomach it seems hardly 
worth while to discuss the more subtle gastronomic 
problems, such as the question put by Dr. Wiley: 
"Whether or not the flavor and character of the flesh 
are impaired by the suffocation process subsequent to 
the capture of the fish." Undoubtedly fish is best when 
killed the instant it leaves the water, and then at once 
eviscerated and cleaned. 

When we have become sufficiently civilized to insist 
on such measures being taken, attention will be paid to 
the suggestions of the Danish fisheries agent, Captain 
A. Soiling, communicated to the "Daily Consular and 
Trade Reports" by Consul-General Wallace C. Bond, 
of Copenhagen. Captain Soiling recommends that the 
fish, at least the better kinds, be cut while yet alive, 
promptly cleaned, and then wrapped in specially pre- 
pared paper which would prevent its coming in direct 
contact with the chopped ice. The objection may be 
raised, he admits, that this way of treating fish is too 
particular and takes too long; but the increased work 
and the increased expense will, he feels sure, soon be 
offset by the higher price secured on account of the bet- 



364 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

ter preservation of the fish; and "the intelligent fish- 
monger will soon discover the advantage of handling 
fish, which if not sold to-day, may be sold in 3, 4 or 8 
days and still be equally good and fresh." 

Progress along this line of gastronomic civilization 
will be a boon to the American farmer. There are tens 
of thousands of lakelets and ponds in our country, most 
of which might be used for fish culture. They will be 
so used by farmers as soon as we have learned the lesson 
the German ponds teach, and stopped buying the fla- 
vorless frozen stuff sold in our fish markets. 

In Switzerland there has been formed a Fish-Grow- 
ers' Association for the enlightenment of the land own- 
ers. Its motto is: "Every Farmer a Fish Pond 
Owner." Attention is called to the demonstrated fact 
that an acre of fish pond is more profitable than the 
same area devoted to the ordinary farm crops. 



GAME AND GEESE. 



The same care that the Germans show in the growing 
and transportation of fish is also manifested in their 
treatment of game. 

During the automobile tour across Germany to which 
reference has been made, we purposely stopped, as a 
rule, at the smaller towns and taverns ; but everywhere, 
without advance notice, we had excellent food. I had 
previously come to the conclusion that the average Ger- 
man restaurant serves nearly if not quite as good meals 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 365 

as the average French restaurant, at least in the 
provinces. 

It was game season, and everywhere we were able 
to get partridges — plump young birds, juicy, and 
cooked scientifically, at about one-third American 
prices. 

Hares and rabbits are a German specialty, and 
Hasenriicken is a very different thing from the undrawn 
rabbit abomination sold in American markets. The 
Californian cottontail is the nearest approach we have 
to the Teutonic hare. I shot dozens of them in Los 
Angeles County one winter and found them as tender 
and almost as well flavored as young chicken. 

Venison is seldom to be had in our markets and usu- 
ally only at fancy prices. In German restaurants it 
is as cheap as beef; sometimes cheaper. The back — 
Rekriicken — costs a trifle more, and is better than the 
rest of the meat, which is usually served roasted or as 
a ragout; but all is good. It seems to be a specialty 
of the Rhine boats. 

Other game also is abundant and cheap, for the 
simple reason that the greed for sport is regulated by 
severe laws which are strictly enforced. We, too, now 
have game laws in most of our States, but they are 
seldom enforced effectively and most of them, more- 
over, were made on the principle of locking the stable 
door after the horse has been stolen. 

Africa is at present the scene of ruthless slaughter of 



366 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

game, big and little, but at its worst it is not often so 
reckless, extravagant, and wasteful as the hideous car- 
nage of which Americans have been guilty. Time was 
when wild pigeons blackened the sky and were slain 
by the hundreds with poles. Wild turkeys inhabited 
every thicket and could be bought for twenty cents 
apiece — they are twice as much a pound now, though 
seldom on sale at any price. Ruffled grouse were so 
plentiful that a bounty was offered for their extermina- 
tion, their abundance being a menace to the crops. To- 
day you pay $5 for a brace of these birds. Deer, until 
lately, were killed for their haunches, the rest being 
left for beasts of prey; while millions of buffaloes were 
slaughtered for their tongues and hides — often for the 
tongues alone. 

The Audubon Society, aided by generous donors and, 
to some extent, by the Government, has done royal 
service to protect game and song birds. The intelli- 
gent sporting clubs are lending useful aid, while the 
Yellowstone Park has been set aside as a great game 
preserve. Unfortunately, although the animals are 
safe from guns while they remain in the Park, thou- 
sands are slaughtered in winter when hunger drives 
them outside its limits, while many thousands more 
perish because no provision is made for feeding these 
poor wards of the Government. 

A pathetic picture is printed in Dillon Wallace's 
splendid book, "Saddle and Camp in the Rockies," 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 367 

It tells a sad story. One settler told him there had 
been times when he could walk half a mile on the 
bodies of dead elk. Instead of helping its wards, 
the Federal Government actually gave permits to 
sheepmen which would have devastated the last 
refuge of the elks. The settlers saved the situation by 
holding an indignation meeting. "The sheepmen saw 
the point — and the rope — and discreetly departed." 

In Germany the game animals are cared for in win- 
ter. While visiting Mark Twain's daughter and her 
husband, the eminent pianist-composer, Ossip Gabri- 
lowitsch, in the Bavarian Highlands, in the summer 
of 1912, we met at their house a young tenor who 
was also a mighty hunter before the Lord. He gave 
us an account of the game laws and the general ar- 
rangements for preservation and multiplication, which 
convinced us that if we are to retrieve the errors and 
crimes of our predecessors, East and West, we must 
follow the example of Germany. 

Pointing to the meadows round about, he explained 
that the hay made on these is preserved and fed to the 
deer in winter. Often one may see as many as a hun- 
dred at a time assembling for their daily meal, and 
people come all the way from Munich to see them at it. 

As it had been found that too much hay or other 
dry food was not good for the deer, the owners of 
private game preserves, of which there are many, have 
taken to planting beets, turnips or potatoes, which re- 



368 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

main in the ground till the animals dig them out from 
under the snow and soil. 

A suggestive detail regarding the protection of birds 
is that thickets, bristling with thorns, are specially pro- 
vided to help them during nesting time and when pur- 
sued by birds or beasts of prey. The clearing away of 
thickets in America has done almost as much as actual 
slaughter in exterminating birds. Lovers of song 
birds as well as epicures who like game for a change 
would unite in blessing our railway campanies if they 
followed the German example of planting shrubs as 
homes for birds all along the railroad embankments. 

While the Germans are fond of partridges and other 
game birds, their favorite food, so far as the feathered 
tribes are concerned, is the domesticated goose. In the 
markets, especially of the northern cities, more geese are 
exposed for sale than all other kinds of poultry com- 
bined, and in restaurants Gdnsebraten is seldom absent 
from the menu. The French rather look down on 
roast goose, but that is because their roast goose is not 
so juicy and tender as the Prussian, whether owing to a 
difference in variety or rearing I cannot tell. 

The Germans are most painstaking in the growing 
and the proper feeding of this bird. They know that 
corn fodder yields the largest amount of fat — and goose 
fat is much in demand — while the finest Flavor is se- 
cured by feeding barley malt. 

The best goose, like the best beef, is grown where 







Deer In German Forest 



37© FOOD AND FLAVOR 

there is abundant pasturage. There is less of this in 
the Empire than there used to be, hence large numbers 
of geese are imported. From six to seven millions of 
them are annually brought across the border, mostly 
from Russia. Every day, a special "goose train," con- 
sisting of from fifteen to forty cars crosses the Russian 
frontier bound for Berlin or Strassburg. 

Strassburg is one of the many cities that were made 
famous by a special food. Goose liver was already 
relished as a great delicacy by the ancient Romans; 
Horace refers in one of his poems to the joys of eat- 
ing the liver of the white goose fattened with juicy figs. 
In Strassburg, unfortunately, the geese are not fattened 
with figs, but are locked up in cages and stuffed for a 
number of days with shelled corn or noodles till their 
overworked livers become abnormally enlarged, after 
which they are made into what is known the world over 
as "pate de foie gras. This mixture of liver, meat and 
truffles is now prepared on a large scale also in Tou- 
louse and other French places, but the headquarters 
for it is Alsace, where it is made in many places, though 
it is said that there is a growing opposition to it on ac- 
count of the cruelty inseparable from the stuffing proc- 
ess. It 's a great pity that such cruelty should be 
necessary, for not a few epicures feel like the Rev. Syd- 
ney Smith, who exclaimed: "My idea of heaven is 
eating foies gras to the sound of trumpets." 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 371 

IN A BERLIN MARKET. 

That the goose is the food of the day and every day 
is made manifest in the markets of Berlin, of which 
there are more than a dozen. All the poultry stalls 
are filled with them, so much so that other meat, even 
the ever-present veal, shrinks timidly into the back- 
ground. 

Wherever one stops, the displays are most attrac- 
tive. There are unfrozen, fresh-killed meats of all 
kinds, tempting even the sightseer who has no inten- 
tion of buying. Autumn flowers, and large boxes of 
deep red Preisselbeeren — a berry very similar to the 
mountain cranberry found on Maine's highest peaks, 
and growing everywhere in Germany (it ought to be 
acclimated in our fields) — give rich autumnal hues to 
many of the market stalls, while the fragrance of 
Gravenstein apples fills the air near the fruit stalls. 

As in Paris, the sea fish are fresh-caught, with ice 
about them, but never frozen, while fresh-water fish 
are carried to the buyer's house in a tank and selected 
alive. The German krebs, or craw-fish, is almost as 
much in evidence as the French ecrevisses, and like 
these, it is kept in tanks of cold, running water, except 
for a few boxfuls, the probable supply of the day, 
which are sorted out by sizes for convenience. "Solo- 
krebs" is one of the items on a Berlin menu, and means 
one huge fellow, almost as big as a small lobster. 



372 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

This Berlin market, unlike the Halles of Paris, does 
not encroach on and beautify the surrounding streets. 
It is orderly and law-abiding, and fills up its allotted 
space of two covered squares to the limit, but with no 
overflow. However, the shops nearby are generally 
for foods, with appetizing windows of sausages, 
smoked meats and fish, or cheeses. 

An oddity of this market is that the upper floor space 
is divided about equally between fruits and household 
furnishings. There is an exhaustless supply of step- 
ladders, and besides these, every need of the kitchen is 
provided for. 

Meat prices, which soar in Berlin, are much lower 
in the big markets than elsewhere. 

Any one coming directly from the United States, 
where the veal is seldom so good as the lamb or the 
beef is sure to wonder at the abundance of calves in 
German markets. After sampling the veal a few 
times, one ceases to wonder why the Germans are so 
addicted to it, and the Austrians no less so. The 
French know how to cook veal, and a good cutlet a la 
Milanaise is not to be despised, but there is nothing 
in its way as good as the Wiener Schnitzel or the Ger- 
man Kalbsbraten. 

The excellence of German veal is due largely to the 
strict exclusion from the markets by the meat inspectors 
of all animals that are too young or too old, the Flavor 
as well as the tenderness of the meat being largely de- 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 373 

pendent on the right age for slaughtering the calf. 
The calves are, moreover, milkfed and not brought up 
on "hay- tea." 

VIENNA BREAD AND HUNGARIAN FLOUR. 

While Parisian bread is as good as bread can be, 
it cannot be said that French bread, the country 
through, is so uniformly excellent as is German bread, 
throughout the two Empires. Not only in Vienna, 
Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Hamburg, Stuttgart, and 
the other large cities is it almost invariably crisp and 
tasty, but it is so in the smaller towns and even the 
villages. 

Ellwanger does not exaggerate when he says in re- 
gard to Germany that "from her inviting B acker eis 
and Conditoreis floats an ambrosial fragrance that may 
not be equaled by the patisseries of Paris, the variety 
of her products being as great as their cheapness and 
wholesomeness. One is born a poet, saith the adage; 
it is equally true that the German is a born baker who 
has no superior in his sphere." 

The Parisians, indeed, learned the secret of making 
perfect bread from the Austrians. 

Bread was baked by Egyptians and Hebrews two 
thousand years before Christ; also by the Greeks, from 
whom the Italians learned the art of making it. There 
are records of Roman bakers who became so wealthy 
and famous that they were invested with the dignity 



374 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

of Senators, but there are reasons for believing that if 
any bakers of our time endeavored to sell the sour 
stuff these Romans made, they would be mobbed. 

Eugen Baron Vaerst relates that a jury of French, 
English, and Italian epicures decided that the best 
pastry was made in Switzerland (Schweizerbackerei 
has been famous for more than a century) and the best 
bread in Vienna. The Austrians may have got some 
hints from the Venetians, who made good bread and 
excellent biscotti. In consequence of that jury's de- 
cision, an enterprising baker set up a shop on the Boule- 
vard Bonne Nouvelle, and "the Parisians, proud to 
have all that was best in different countries taken to 
them for their verdict and approval, decided that this 
was the best bonne nouvelle that had ever been brought 
to them." 

This baker soon became wealthy and so did others 
who followed his example. To this day pain viennois 
is in the best repute in Paris, and so is Viennese pastry. 

Most juries of epicures would agree to-day that not 
only is Viennese bread perfect but that, next to Paris, 
the Austrian capital has the best restaurants, and the 
most savory domestic cooking in the world. Many of 
the foods served have local Flavors, not the least agree- 
able of which are those betraying the neighborhood of 
Hungary — the Gulyas, the Paprikakuhn, and other 
dishes reddened and made piquant with paprika, which 
must not be confounded with the much sharper variety 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 375 

of red pepper, cayenne, so dear to Spanish peoples of 
the old world and the new. 

A specialty of the Austrian and South-German cui- 
sine, the neglect of which elsewhere is incomprehensi- 
ble, is the Mehlspeise, which ought to be adopted in 
England and America as an occasional substitute for 
puddings and pies. There is an endless variety of 
these Mehlspeisen, under the species Nudeln, Spatzen, 
Kipferl, Kitchen, Strudel, Nockerl, Flocked, Knodel, 
Schmarren. Really, the Kaiserschmarren and the Ap- 
felstrudel ought to be adopted as national American 
dishes by special act of Congress. 

Flavorsome Hungarian flour (Mekl) is used in mak- 
ing these dishes (Speisen) and that is one of the reasons 
why they are so good. The Hungarian brand of flour 
is the best in the world, especially the highest grade, 
known as Auszugmehl. It has an amber tint known 
among bakers as the gelbliche Stick. On account of 
its agreeable Flavor, Hungarian flour is sent in large 
quantities to Germany, and some goes as far as Paris. 
Because of the freight expenses it is not usually sent 
north of Berlin. In that city the best bread is made 
of it, including the favorite Kniippel and the Milch- 
brode. Farther north, a mixture of German and 
American flour is used. 

A few American grocers import Hungarian flour. 
The test of the best European product is that when the 
hand is laid on it, it flies up between the fingers. 



376 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

American flour packs. Mrs. Arpad Gerster (whose 
husband is a brother of the famous Hungarian prima 
donna, Etelka Gerster) gives me the very important 
information that our flour can be made almost equal 
to the foreign by drying it on a platter on top of the 
stove. Bread, cakes, noodles, etc., made with flour 
thus dried have the much-coveted European lightness. 

The Germans know as well as the French that the 
crust is the sweetest and most digestible part of bread 
and that its Flavor depends on there being a maximum 
of crust with a minimum of crumb, quite as much as it 
does on the grade of flour used, and the method of 
making the dough and baking it. To ensure a maxi- 
mum of crust, white bread is usually baked in the size 
of rolls, as Semmel, and in a great variety of other 
shapes, every region having its specialty. 

While it is true that, as a German writer remarks, 
the eating of white bread is a mark of prosperity in 
his country, it must not be inferred that it is only the 
poorer classes who buy the cheaper Schwarzbrod^ made 
of rye. On account of its agreeable flavor this "black- 
bread" appeals particularly to epicures, and the darkest 
variety of it, Pumpernickel, is called for by gourmets 
the world over as the best thing to eat with cheeses of 
the Limburger type. It is also used as an ingredient 
in various Mehlspeisen and crimes. It is made of 
flour from which the bran has not been bolted. 

Cereal perfumery is not a tiling you can buy at an 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 377 

apothecary's. You get it by munching a piece of rye 
bread with fresh butter on it and consciously breathing 
out through the nose. 

In France rye bread is almost unknown. In Eng- 
land attempts were made a few years ago to popularize 
it. Nature and other periodicals took up the matter, 
which had been brought to the fore during a political 
campaign where some of the speakers deplored the lot 
of the German laboring man for being obliged to eat 
rye bread. By way of reply, attention was called to 
the fact that the Kaiser himself always has rye bread 
on his table, and that in American cities, as in those of 
Germany, there is much demand for such bread in the 
wealthy quarters. Apparently the attempt to enrich 
the British menu with a cheap new delicacy failed, for 
trade reports of 1912 intimated that while there is at 
all times a demand for corn and oats on the Liverpool 
market, rye does not find sale there. 

There are many other German bread and cake 
specialties that deserve to be introduced in other 
countries. Two of them are already known to epicures 
of many countries : the Lebkuchen, or honeycake, which 
made Nuremburg famous, and the lye-soaked, twisted, 
crisp Pretzel. This has a little salt strewn on the 
crust and the same is true of other kinds of small 
breads. Particularly good is the Mohnbrot, which is 
peppered with poppy seeds. Try it. Poppy seed is 
as good to eat as any nut that grows. 



378 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

In these things the Germans show a good deal of 
imagination ; but as for the anise-seeds so often mingled 
with the rye bread, I wish they would leave them to 
the imagination. The general use of them has proba- 
bly done more than anything else to prevent the ac- 
ceptance of German rye bread in foreign countries. 

GERMAN MENUS ON SEA AND LAND. 

The Germans claim that the custom of providing 
a written or printed menu, or Speisenkarte, originated 
in their country. 

At a meeting of the Reichstag in Regensburg, in 
1541, Count Hugo of Montfort noticed one day at a 
banquet that the host, Duke Heinrich von Braun- 
schweig, had before him a Zettel, or slip of paper, which 
he glanced at now and then. Being questioned, the 
Duke replied that it was a list of the dishes that were 
to be served, made for him by the chef so that he might 
save his appetite for those which he liked best. 

Whether true or not, the story gives the raison 
d'etre for a menu at every table-d'hote meal. It 
is related by Friedrich Baumann in his Meisterwerk 
der Speisen, a monumental work in two volumes, of 
over two thousand pages, to which brief reference has 
already been made. Baumann has been called the 
German Careme (who was "the Luther of the 
French cuisine"). To him cooking was not mere 
handwork; it was an art and a science; and in his work 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 379 

he not only enumerates and briefly describes the foods 
of all countries (for example, of fishes, and dishes 
made thereof, there are about twenty-five hundred!), 
but treats of everything pertaining to the growing, cook- 
ing, and serving of victuals with true German thorough- 
ness and with hundreds of those footnotes which are 
accepted in that country as the best evidence of scholar- 
ship. 

Of all the German cities none is visited by more 
American and English tourists than Munich; and few 
of these fail to go and see the Court Brewery, even 
though they may not wish to try the beer — the best 
in the world. You may eat at the Hofbrauhaus with- 
out drinking anything, though you will be stared at 
as a freak. There are several large dining-rooms and 
the bill of fare is large, varied, and thoroughly Ger- 
man. Look at the soups, for instance: bouillon with 
egg, bread soup, noodle soup with or without a large 
chunk of boiled chicken, which adds sixteen cents to 
the price, liver-noodle soup, and brain soup. All 
are nutritious and tasty and cost only four or five 
cents a big plate. The fishes offered on this partic- 
ular day in September are carp, pike, sand-eel from 
the Danube, and perch-pike. These cost from about 
27 to 32 cents a generous portion. Ochsenfleisch 
— boiled beef — is always in great demand and is 
usually juicy and well-flavored. Without vegeta- 
bles it costs only 12 cents a plate. Five different cuts 



380 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

of veal open the list of roasts, and the same price is 
charged for them — 17 cents — though in other restau- 
rants the kidney piece often costs a few cents more. 
Pork is two cents and a half higher, while chicken, 
goose, and pigeon may rise to the dizzy heights of 32 
cents a plate. 

Among the day's ready dishes — Fertige Speisen — 
we note haunch of venison at 35 cents and leg of 
venison for five cents less. Half a partridge is listed 
at 24 cents, and the same charge is made for a quarter 
of a wild duck. There is of course a Sauerbraten — a 
sort of boeuf a la mode with a palatable sour sauce — 
and you may choose bceuf braise, or Greek steak, or 
various mutton dishes, smoked meats, and so on, the 
prices for these being about 22 to 24 cents, including 
a vegetable: cabbage, potatoes, beans, or rice, noodles, 
dumplings (Bavarian liver-dumplings — Leberknodel — 
are fine!) or macaroni with minced ham, which ought 
to be on every table in every country at least two or 
three times a week. 

The roasts and fries to order include, of course, the 
Wiener Schnitzel (savory when you have German or 
Austrian veal) the Paprikaschnitzel and various other 
cuts from the calf or the ox. Kompotts are in Ger- 
many served with roasts as regularly as salads are in 
France; they are stewed fruits — apples, pears, apricots, 
cherries, and berries among which the Preisselbeere is 
most Teutonic and most delicious. 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 381 

The Mehlspeisen on this particular menu are fewer 
in number and less racy of the soil that those you 
would find on a Viennese bill of fare. Besides the 
international omelette and the Italian macaroni there 
is only the German pancake and the Windnudel. 
Among the vegetables and salads are listed, rather 
out of place, the Spatzl, a variety of the noodles which 
are the German version of the Italian macaroni and 
other pastes, and which only a German knows how to 
cook to perfection. A glance at the twenty-two varie- 
ties of cold meats and appetizers and the dozen varie- 
ties of cheese brings to mind the international aspect of 
German gastronomy. 

In the more expensive restaurants of Munich and 
other German cities the French influence is more 
obvious. I chose the menu of the Hofbrauhaus be- 
cause of its thoroughly bourgeois and German aspect. 

The largest restaurants in the world are in Berlin; 
one of them seats four thousand people. In the bour- 
geois places the food is usually less savory than in sim- 
ilar establishments in South Germany, but there is a 
larger proportion of the high and highest class resorts, 
with viands and prices almost, if not quite, on a level 
with those of Paris and London, which it is the ambi- 
tion and intention of the Berliners ultimately to sur- 
pass in these respects as well as in the splendors of their 
hotels. 

Another German ambition is to have the largest 



Breakfast. 

Fruit. 

Oranges, Bananas, Grape Fruit, Grapes 

Preserves 

Honey, Strawberry Marmalade, Jams, Quince Jelly 
Sweet Pickel Peaches, Scotch Marmalade 

Coffee, Tea, etc. 

Coffee, CoffeeYneless Coffee H. A. G., Cocoa, Chocolate 
Ceylon Tea, Mixed Tea, Milk and Cream 

Bread 

Rolls, Milk and Butter Toast, Toast plain 
Various Kinds of Cakes and Crackers 

Cereals 

Milk Rice, Oatmeal, Hominy, Force, Shredded Wheat, Grape Nuts 

Eggs, Omelettes and Pancakes 

Buckwheat, Hominy, Rice and Wheat Cakes, 

Pancakes plain, with Apples or Cherries 

Apricot or Currant Marmalade 

Potato Pancakes, 

Boiled Eggs, Poached Eggs, Baked Eggs 

Fried Eggs plain, with Bacon or a la Tyrolienne 

Scrambled Eggs plain, with Ham or a la Bavaroise 

Omelette plain, aux fines Herbes or with Strawberries 

Fish, Steaks, Chops etc. 

Kippered Herrings, Haddock, Fish Croquettes, Sole, Salted Mackerels 

Fillet Steak Westmoreland, Fillet of Veal Esterhazy 

Fillet Gulyas with Mushrooms, German Beef Steak 

Chicken Liver on the Spit with Piemontaise Rice 

Calf's Liver with Apples and Onions, Fried Calf's Brains Sauce Re"moulade 

Grill: Tenderloin Steak, Mutton Chops, Sirloinsteak, Lamb Kidneys, 

English Ham, Frankfort Sausages 

Potatoes 

Boiled, Fried, Baked, Mashed Potatoes 
Saratoga Chips, French Fried Potatoes, Lyonnaise Potatoes 

Cold Dishes 

Westphalian Ham, Smoked Bologna Sausages, Smoked Tongue 
Potted Fieldfares witl\ Truffles, Roast Beef, Chicken 

Relishes 

Eel in Jelly, Oil Sardines, Anchovies, Fillet of Herring in diverser Sauce 

Cheese 

Camembert, Herb, Imperial, Holland Cheese 



Gabel~Fri£hsfiack - Lrimctieon 

a la carte. 



Vorspeisen 

Salat de Bocut Parisienne 

Kiiken-Salat 

Geraucherter Aal 

Royans a la Bordelaise 

Heringsfilet, Remouladensauce 

Rollmops 

Anchovis 

Siippen 

Huhner-Kraftbiiihe in Tassen 
Schnttisclie Graupensuppe 
Kartoflelsuppe mit Croutons 

Fisch 

Gerosteter Lachs, Anchovisbutter) 
Streilbarsch, Sauce Pluche 

Eierspeisen 

Omelett mit Schnittlauch 
Spiegeleier Othello 
Verlorene Eier Cardinal 

Fleischspeisen und Gefltigel 

Kiiken in Curry und Reis 
Kalbsleber mit Aepfeln und Zwiebeln 

Kartoffelmus 
Zungenragout Financifcre, Fleurons 
Entre-cotes a la Macddoine 
|ungschweinskeule deutsche Art 
Roastbeei au Jus 

Biirgerliches Gericht 

Klops a la Konigsberg 

Auf Bestellung (vorn Grill 15 Min ) 

Hammelkoteletten, Beefsteak 
Filetsteak, Rumpsteak 

Gemiise und Kartoffeln 

Brechspargel 

Perlbohnen 

Spaghetti italienisclie Art 

Ciekochter Reis 

Franzosische und deutsche Bralkartotfeln 

Kartolfelmus, Gebackene Kartoffeln 

Salale 

Kartoffelsalat, Achanaka-Salat 

Kaltesr Buffet 

Lammriicken garniert 

Galantine von Pou la rde,Sauce Cumberland 

Chaud-froid von Reh mit Pilzen 

Tournedos Jockey Art 

Junge Ente in Aspik 

Geraucherte Zunge 

Gespicktes Kalbsirikandeau, Roastbeef 

Kaltes Gefltigel 

Gerauchertrr und gekochter Schinken 

Kompolt und SiiBspeisen 

Birnen 

Blanc-manger mit Friichten 

Schneeballe 

Kase 

Krauter-, Schweizer-, Camembert-Kase 
Frur.ht Kaffee 



Hors d'Oeuvres 

Salad de Boeuf Parisienne 

Chicken Salad 

Smoked Eel 

Royans a la Bordelaise 

Fillet of Herrings, Sauce Remoulade 

Rolled Pickled Herrings 

Anchovies 

Soups 

Chicken Broth in Cup 
Scotch Barley Soup 
Potato Soup with Crouton9 

Fish 

Broiled Salmon, Anchovy Butter 
Striped Bass, Sauce Pluche 

Eggs 

Omelet with Chive 
Fried Eggs Othello 
Poached Eggs Cardinal 

Entrees, Roasts and Poultry 

Curried Chicken with Rice 
Calf's-liver with Apples and Onions 

Mashed Potatoes 
Tongue Ragout Financiere, Fleurons 
Entre-cotes a la Mac£doine 
Leg of Pork, German Style 
Roastbeef au Jus 

Special Dish 

Klops a la Koenigsberg 

To Order (from the Grill 15 min.) 

Mutton Chops, Beelsteak 
Tenderloin Steak, Sirloin Steak 

Vegetables and Potaloes 

Cut Asparagus 

String Beans 

Spaghetti Italienne 

Boiled Rice 

French and German fried Potatoes 

Mashed Potatoes, Baked Potatoes 

Salads 

Potato Salad, Salad Achanaka 

Cold Cuts and Cold Dishes 

Saddle of Lamb garnished 

Galantine of Pullet, Sauce Cumberland 

Chaud-froid of Venison, Mushrooms 

Tournedos a la Jockey 

Duckling in Aspic 

Smoked Tongue 

Larded Roast Veal, Roastbeef 

Roast Chicken 

Smoked and Boiled Ham 

Compote and Desserts 

Pears 

Blanc-manger with Fruits 

Cream Puffs 

Cheese 

Herb, Swiss, Camembert Cheese 
Fruit Coffee 



384 



FOOD AND FLAVOR 



Table-stewards and stateroom-stewards will 

take orders lor dinner ai any time during 

the day. 



Carte du jour. 

flors d'Oeuvres: 

Hors d'oeuvre Vane" 

Caprice Slicks 
Soups: 

Consomme" Grimaldi 
Cream Soup a" la d'Orle'ans 
Fieldfare Soup Old Style 

Fish: 

Salmon Cutlets a ra Count d'Artoi9 

Sole Meuniere 

Turbot, Butter, Parsley 
Entrees: 

Fillet of Beei Renaissance 

Lamb Chops, Sauce Pdrigueux 

Stuffed Artichoke Bottoms 

Croutons of Goose Liver Moderne (cold) 

Broiled Sweetbread, Green Peas 

Enlrecotes Jardiniere 

Leg of Lamb, Larded, Brussels Sprouts. 
Grill: (15—30 min.): 

Mixed Grill consisting of: 

Fillet Mignon, Lamb Chops 

Kidney, Sausage, Tomato 

Tenderloin Steak, Entrecote, Sirloin Steak 

Lamb Chops, Mutton Chops 

Ready Dishes: 

Prague Ham a la Fitz lames 
Poultry : 

Cherbourg Poularde 

Partridge 
Vegetables: 

Pdlm Marrow Bordelaise 

Peas and Asparagus, Stew Corn 
Boiled Rice 

French and German fried Potatoes 
Mashed Potatoes, Baked Potatoes 

Compote: 
Green Gages, Strawberries 

Salads: 
Lettuce Salad 
Endive Salad 

Sweets: 
Strawberry L~e, Whipped Cream- 
Peaches a la Condd 
Praline Ice Cream 
Ice Napolitaine 
Pastry 

Cheese Fruit Cotlee 



A few Suggestions 



I. 

Hors d'oeuvre Vane" 

Cream Soup a la d'Orle'ans 

Sole Meuniere 

Lamb Chops, Sauce PeYigueux 
Stuffed Artichoke Bottoms 

Partridge 
Compote Salad 

Strawberry Ice, Whipped Cream 



II. 

Fieldfare Soup Old Style 

Salmon Cutlets a la Count d'Artois 

Filkt of Beel Renaissance 

Croutons of Goose Liver Moderne (cold; 

Cherbourg Poularde 

Compote Salad 

Palm Marrow Bordelaise 

Peaches a la Conde" 



III. (Supper) 

Caprice Sticks 

Consomme" Grimaldi 

Turbot, Butter, Parsley 

Leg ol Lamb, Larded, Brussels Sprouts 

Praline Ice Cream 
Pastry 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 385 

and most comfortable floating hotels. The newest 
Hamburg and Bremen steamers are indeed unsurpassed 
in any respect, and their cuisine is particularly good. 
The trans-Atlantic steamers have the great advantage 
of being able to buy in New York the best things 
American markets offer, and in the German ports not 
only the European delicatessen, but those which the 
sister boats bring from Oriental countries. I once 
gained eight pounds in as many days crossing the Big 
Pond on a German steamer; and can you wonder, in 
view of the abundance of the choicest viands offered 
as antidotes to the hunger-breeding sea air? 

There are now on the largest steamers Ritz-Carlton 
restaurants for wealthy epicures; but you need not go 
to these for good food, as the sample menus for first- 
cabin breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the Kaiserin 
Angus te Victoria, herewith reproduced, indicate. He 
must be hard to please, indeed, who cannot find some- 
thing on such menus to tempt his appetite — unless he 
is sea-sick. 

GERMAN, SWISS, AND DUTCH CHEESES. 

German steamers and German restaurants nearly 
always offer a variety of French, Dutch, Italian, Eng- 
lish, and Swiss cheeses in addition to those of their 
own country, among the best known of which are the 
Handkase, the Liptauer, the Harz, the Krauter and the 
Limburger, which, though it originated in Belgium, 



386 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

has come to be looked upon as a specifically German 
variety. 

Germany is not, like Switzerland, Holland, and 
parts of France, a land of pastures green and studded 
with grazing cows. Pasturage throughout the Empire 
is usually so scarce — the land being needed for grain 
and other crops — that the cows, poor things, are kept in 
stables all the year round. It is therefore, not sur- 
prising that Germany is not among the great exporters 
of cheeses, most of the many domestic varieties, some 
of which are excellent, being consumed at home. 

Very different is the situation in Switzerland, where 
cheese-making is one of the principal industries, the 
value of the exports exceeding $12,000,000 a year, 
nearly one quarter of which, in 1911, was sent to the 
United States. So good is the Flavor of Schweizer- 
kase that even France, in that year, took $2,688,539 
worth of it, while Germany took $1,888,257 worth. 

Nearly all the cheese which Switzerland exports is 
of the hard Emmenthaler type, put up in the huge 
cakes familiar to us all. It is practically the same as 
the French Gruyere. Not all Emmenthaler comes 
from the Emmenthal, the valley where the pasturage 
is particularly abundant and juicy. 

The best flavored Swiss cheese is that which is made 
in summer, when the cows roam the mountain sides, 
going up higher and higher as the season advances and 
the snow melts, till they reach the slopes where even 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 387 

at the end of August the soil is still moist and the herb- 
age two or three feet tall. This succulent food, con- 
sisting largely of lovely Alpine flowers, they indus- 
triously condense into fragrant cream, butter, and 
cheese. 

When we speak of the Alps we mean snow moun- 
tains, particularly those of Switzerland. The Swiss 
themselves, however, when they refer to the Alps, 
mean the green pastures on the mountain sides on 
which the cows gather sustenance and wealth for 
them. 

On one of these Alps, above Miirren, I once accosted 
a peasant who gave me information which confirmed 
my belief that the much-liked Flavor of Swiss cheese 
is due not alone to the succulent Alpine forage, but also, 
in great part, to the way the best of it is made — with 
all the cream left in the milk. 

This peasant was himself a cheese-maker, and our 
conversation took place within sight of his cowsheds. 
He was surprised when I asked him if he ever used 
sour cream to make butter. He had never dreamt of 
such a thing. Usually he churned it in the evening, 
using the cream that had risen on the morning of the 
same day. At the latest the churning was done the 
next morning before the cream could possibly sour in 
that climate. A sour "starter," such as is nearly al- 
ways added to cream in America before it is churned, 
he had never heard of; the very idea amazed him. 



388 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

And Swiss butter is nearly always good, while Ameri- 
can butter is usually bad. 

Questioned in regard to cheese, he said they made 
two grades of it, the Fettkase, which contains all the 
cream, and the Magerk'dse, made of skim milk. For 
the latter kind, he said, he had no use, because it was 
comparatively tasteless. It is made in considerable 
quantities, however, for the poor, of milk from which 
the cream has been taken for butter-making or for the 
hotel tables. 

Cheese-making is much more of a fine art than most 
of us imagine. The utmost skill and care must be 
used to exclude undesirable flavors in the air due to 
uncleanly surroundings, since cheese absorbs these as 
readily as butter does. The season of the year and 
the feed must always be considered. Thus, in regard 
to the highly prized English Stilton we read that the 
finest variety "is principally made between March and 
September and solely from the milk of cows fed on 
natural pasture"; and that "the use of artificial food 
for the cows is at once detected in a change for the 
worse in the character of the cheese" — that is, its 
flavor. 

Upon good feeding depends the production of fat in 
milk, and milk fat, alias cream, is a great source of 
Flavor. The best kinds of most of the leading cheeses 
are made of whole milk — milk with none of the cream 
taken out. Some kinds, like cottage cheese, are made 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 389 

of skim milk yet how the addition of cream improves 
their Flavor! Camembert, of course, is made of 
whole milk, and in the manufacture of some kinds, in- 
cluding Stilton, extra cream is sometimes added. 

Much spurious stuff is palmed off on unwary buyers 
as whole milk or cream cheese. The dealers who do 
this, think themselves "smart," but in the end they 
harm their business. The excellent little book on 
"Cheese and Cheese Making," by Long and Benson 
(London: Chapman and Hall, 1896) begins with 
these instructive words: 

"Professor Henry, of the Wisconsin Agricultural 
College, recently stated that the loss of the American 
cheese trade with great Britain was owing to the fact 
that his countrymen did not make the best article, and 
that in many cases imitation cheese was produced for 
the sake of a possible temporary profit but to the ulti- 
mate loss of all concerned. Whatever may be the im- 
mediate gain effected by the addition of foreign fat 
to milk, or by the removal of a portion of the cream it 
contains, the "permanent value of the cheese industry 
to the producer is maintained only by the manufacture 
of the best and of its production in the largest possible 
quantity." 

The italics are mine. They emphasize what is one 
of the most regrettable aspects of the situation in 
America — the deplorable and at the same time foolish 
disposition to make an immediate extra profit by un- 



39o FOOD AND FLAVOR 

loading on purchasers inferior cheeses and other foods 
in the belief that the consumers are too ignorant or 
indifferent to know or care what they get. 

From personal experience I can relate a detail of 
New York market history which vividly illustrates the 
folly of this attitude. 

For several years I was able to buy the best Edam 
cheeses made in Holland — full-cream and therefore 
full-flavored. One autumn, on returning to the city, I 
tried in vain to get this same brand at the places where 
it had been on sale. I sampled the substitutes but was 
not satisfied with their Flavor. Having found out 
through a grocer the name of the importer of that 
brand, I called on him and asked why he no longer 
had it on his list. He had the effrontery to inform me 
that it was because he had had so many complaints 
that that brand did not keep well — that it "dried out." 
I told him that my own experience had been just the 
reverse, and that, as a matter of course, the more 
cream-fat there was in a cheese the more slowly it 
would dry out. But he stuck to his story. 

In a confidential talk with a grocer I then ascertained 
what I had suspected. Dealers in cheap Edams, made 
of skimmed milk, had crowded out the maker of the 
creamy Edam who, of course, could not make so low 
a price to the wholesale dealers as they did. "Why 
not import several brands and charge according to their 
value and Flavor?" I asked, adding that many persons 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 391 

surely would gladly pay extra for the better grades. 
But that argument, too, was unavailing. The "smart" 
dealers did not wish to offer several grades; they 
wanted to charge the highest price for the lowest 
grade. And now note the consequences. 

In one large market which I often passed there was 
at that time a large show case containing dozens of 
the familiar red "cannon balls"; but they were no 
longer of the full-cream brand the lively demand for 
which had won them the most prominent place in that 
glass case. The new brand bore a label on which was 
printed "Made of Skimmed Milk"; and this same 
brand seemed to be almost exclusively on sale all over 
town. 

There was nothing dishonest about this procedure. 
Dealers have the right to sell any variety they choose, 
and this brand, being clearly marked, did not pretend 
to be what it was not. It evidently came from Hol- 
land, and it was as good a cheese as can be made of 
skimmed milk. 

The importers and dealers evidently believed that 
the consumers were too ignorant or indifferent to care 
whether or not the cheese they bought had the rich 
creamy Flavor. At first I feared they might be right 
in this surmise, but ere long I found that I was by no 
means the only person who had stopped buying Edam 
because the best brand was no longer kept on sale in 
the American metropolis. The number of red balls 



392 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

in that show case gradually diminished and finally 
disappeared altogether. 

The Dutch Government has given much attention 
to the question of cream in cheese, and no wonder, for 
the annual production of cheese in Holland amounts 
to at least 175,000,000 pounds, of which two-thirds 
are exported. The Minister of Agriculture has au- 
thorized the use of labels guaranteeing purity and 
quality. The Government control stamp "can be used 
only on cheese made of unskimmed milk and contain- 
ing 45 per cent, of fats," writes Consul Frank W. 
Mahin from Amsterdam. "It is the special inten- 
tion to make the full-fat product more profitable by 
marking it, which at the same time will promote the 
manufacture of the cheese of superior qualities." 

In another contribution on this subject to the "Con- 
sular and Trade Reports" (April, 1911) Mr. Mahin 
provides information which buyers of Edam or Gouda 
will do well to bear in mind: 

"A meeting of the North Holland Cheese Control 
Station, attended by a representative of the Govern- 
ment, was recently held at Hoorn, at which it was de- 
cided to divide marked cheese into two classes: (1) 
Cheese of Edam shape, with fatty component in the 
dry material of at least 40 per cent., to be marked 40+, 
in a hexagon; (2) full fat cheese, of different shapes, 
with a fatty substance in the dry material of at least 



GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES 393 

45 per cent., to be marked Rijkscontrole (Government 
control). 

"It was stated at the meeting that the average pro- 
portion of fat in the cheese made in 1910 by factories 
was 44.8 per cent, and by farmers 47.5 per cent., being 
one per cent, higher than in 1909. The quantity of 
marked cheese sold in IQIO was 45 r p er cen t- greater 
than in IQOQ, and the demand from dealers therefore 
has so much increased that there is now a shortage?' 

Evidently, dealers are not everywhere as short- 
sighted as were those of New York. However, in 
the autumn of 1912 I noticed, among these, signs of 
almost human intelligence. Before the end of 1912 
I saw in some stores Dutch cheeses labeled "Above 
40% butter-fat in total solids." By and by we may 
perhaps be permitted to spend our money even for the 
kind made by the farmers and containing 47.5 per cent, 
of cream fat. 



?&&i 



\-U 







p^ 



X 

BRITISH SPECIALTIES 




thackeray's little sermon. 

NGLAND has produced some 
eminent epicures. As prominent 
among them as among her novelists 
is William Makepiece Thackeray. 
In a magazine article on Green- 
wich and Whitebait, dated 1844, 
he expressed his scorn for those 
who do not appreciate good food. 
"A man who brags regarding himself; that whatever 
he swallows is the same to him, and that his coarse 
palate recognizes no difference between venison and 
turtle, pudding or mutton-broth, as his indifferent 
jaws close over them, brags about a personal defect 
— the wretch — and not about a virtue. It is like 
a man boasting that he has no ear for music, or no eye 
for color, or that his nose cannot scent the difference 
between a rose and a cabbage — I say, as a general rule, 

394 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 395 

set that man down as a conceited fellow who swaggers 
about not caring for dinner." 

Three years earlier, in his Memorials of Gormandiz- 
ing, which he penned in Paris, he preached another ser- 
mon on the subject — a sermon which may fitly be re- 
printed here because the state of affairs which distressed 
Thackeray has not been quite mended yet — far from it. 
Speaking of Parisian opportunities for gastronomic ex- 
periments, he says: 

"A man in London has not, for the most part, the 
opportunity to make these experiments. You are a 
family man, let us presume, and you live in that me- 
tropolis for half a century. You have on Sunday, say, 
a leg of mutton and potatoes for dinner. On Monday 
you have cold mutton and potatoes. On Tuesday, 
hashed mutton and potatoes; the hashed mutton being 
flavored with little damp triangular pieces of toast, 
which always surround that charming dish. Well, on 
Wednesday, the mutton ended, you have beef: the 
beef undergoes the same alterations of cookery and dis- 
appears. Your life presents a succession of joints, 
varied every now and then by a bit of fish and some 
poultry. . . . 

"Some of the most pure and precious enjoyments of 
life are unknown to you. You eat and drink, but you 
do not know the art of eating and drinking; nay, most 
probably you despise those who do. 'Give me a slice 
of meat,' say you, very likely, 'and a fig for your gour- 



396 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

mands.' You fancy it is very virtuous and manly all 
this. Nonsense, my good sir; you are indifferent be- 
cause you are ignorant, because your life is passed in a 
narrow circle of ideas, and because you are bigotedly 
blind and pompously callous to the beauties and excel- 
lencies beyond you. 

"Sir, respect your dinner; idolize it, enjoy it 
properly. You will be by many hours in the week, 
many weeks in the year, and many years in your life 
the happier if you do. 

"Don't tell me that it is not worthy of a man. All a 
man's senses are worthy of enjoyment, and should be 
cultivated as a duty. The senses are the arts. 
You like your dinner, man; never be ashamed to say 
so. If you don't like your victuals, pass on to the next 
article; but remember that every man who has been 
worth a fig in this world, as poet, painter, or musician, 
has had a good appetite and a good taste." 

DR. JOHNSON AND SAMUEL PEPYS. 

Doubtless the attitude towards the pleasures of the 
table which displeased Thackeray was largely a sham, 
a mere pretense, though to some extent it was a Puritan 
reaction from the gross gluttony in which Englishmen 
indulged in ye olden times, as did the Germans, the 
Romans, the Russians, the Dutch, and many others. 

Dr. Samuel Johnson was an amusing and amazing 
example of inconsistency in his gastronomic preaching 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 397 

and practice. To Mrs. Piozzi he remarked that "wher- 
ever the dinner is ill got up there is poverty or there is 
avarice, or there is stupidity; in short, the family is 
somehow grossly wrong." To Boswell he said: 
"Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or 
pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I 
mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for 
I look upon it that he that does not mind his belly will 
hardly mind anything else." 

Yet on other occasions Boswell heard him talk with 
great contempt of people who were anxious to gratify 
their palates. He sneered at gluttons, yet he was one 
himself. "When at table he was totally absorbed in 
the business of the moment : his looks seemed riveted to 
his plate; nor would he, unless when in very high com- 
pany, say one word, or even pay the least attention to 
what was said by others, till he had satisfied his ap- 
petite; which was so fierce, and indulged with such in- 
tenseness, that, while in the act of eating, the veins of 
his forehead swelled, and generally a strong perspira- 
tion was visible." He told Boswell he had never been 
hungry but once; upon which that biographer com- 
ments : "They who beheld with wonder how much he 
ate upon all occasions, when his dinner was to his taste, 
could not easily conceive what he must have meant by 
hunger." Yet he was a man of discernment: he used 
to descant critically on the dishes which had been at 
table where he had dined or supped, and to recollect 



398 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

very minutely what he had liked. According to Mrs. 
Piozzi, his favorite dainties were "a leg of pork boiled 
till it dropped from the bone, a veal pie with plums and 
sugar, or the outside cut of a salt buttock of beef." 
He surely needed a Parisian education! 

The same witness throws a limelight on the doctor's 
peculiarities by remarking with regard to drink that 
"his liking was for the strongest, as it was not the flavor 
but the effect he sought for and professed to desire." 

In other words, strength and quantity were of greater 
importance to him than quality (Flavor) ; and in this 
he was a true descendant of his predecessors, one of 
whom has left an amazing record of his appetite. The 
home menus of Samuel Pepys included on one occasion 
"a dish of marrow bones, a leg of mutton, a loin of 
veal, a dish of fowl, three pullets, and a dozen larks 
all in a dish; a great tart, a neat's-tongue, a dish of 
anchovies, a dish of prawns, and cheese." More aston- 
ishing still is the following repast, prepared, as he 
boasts, by his "own only mayde" : "We had a fricas- 
see of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, 
three carps in a dish, a great dish of a side of lamb, a 
dish of roasted pigeons, a dish of four lobsters, three 
tarts, a lamprey-pie, a most rare pie, a dish of ancho- 
vies, good wine of several sorts, and all things mighty 
noble." This dinner, he exclaims, joyously, "was 
great." It certainly was. 

If England is to the present day classed among the 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 399 

ungastronomic nations, by her own epicures as well as 
by foreigners, it is due largely to this indulgence in 
"great" dinners, this regard for quantity — especially of 
meats — at the expense, usually, of quality and artistic 
cooking. Generally speaking, the English have been 
slower than the Italians, the French, and the Germans 
in discovering the gastronomic importance of the more 
delicate Flavors developed by the cooking, which is 
done con amore. Koche mit hiebe is the title of a 
German cook book, and there certainly are more house- 
wives in the three countries named who cook for their 
families "with loving devotion" to their task than there 
are in England or America. 

THE ROAST BEEF OF OLD ENGLAND. 

Too much emphasis cannot, however, be placed on 
the fact that, while all these things are true, England 
has nevertheless led the way in some of the most im- 
portant branches of culinary progress. It is to these 
branches that I wish to devote this chapter, pointing out 
the lessons Great Britain teaches us and the European 
continent. It seems never to have occurred to any 
writer to do this, which is strange, for the story is in- 
teresting as well as important. 

To begin with butcher's meats, the English certainly 
excel in the roasting and broiling of them, as well as in 
the rearing of the right kind of stock, which is equally 
important from the point of view of Flavor. 



400 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Perhaps it is as foolish to refer to the British as beef- 
eaters as it is to call the Italians macaroni-eaters and 
the Japanese rice-eaters, for the humbler classes in 
England cannot afford beef any oftener than the poorer 
Italians and Japanese can afford to eat macaroni or 
rice. 

Time was when even the wealthy Britons could not 
often eat beef or other butcher's meat, especially in 
winter. Up to the eighteenth century sheep and cat- 
tle were killed and salted at the beginning of cold 
weather and "during several months of the year even 
the gentry tasted scarcely any fresh animal food, 
except game and river fish. As to the common 
people, an old chapbook of the period, entitled 'The 
Misfortunes of Simple Simon' uses the expression 
'roast-meat cloaths' as an equivalent for holiday 
clothes." 1 

The systematic growing of turnips for the winter 
keep of cattle made it possible to have fresh meat in 
winter, too; and at the same time, thanks largely to 
the efforts of the agriculturist, Robert Bakewell, cattle 
and sheep breeding began to be done on scientific 
principles. 

Bakewell's aim was to fatten the animals more 
quickly and to secure a greater proportion and a better 

1 "Good Cheer. The Romance of Food and Feasting." By F. W. 
Hackwood. This volume contains many interesting details relating 
to old English customs in the dining-room and kitchen, in homes, inns, 
and monasteries. 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 401 

quality of meat. The result of such improvements was 
that, whereas in 1710 the average net weight of cattle 
sold in London was 370 lbs., by the time of Bakewell's 
death (1795) it had increased to 800 lbs., while the 
average weight of sheep had increased from 28 pounds 
to 80. 

In the last quarter of the eighteenth century the Col- 
lins brothers still further improved cattle by breeding 
for special points, reducing the size of the head and legs 
and enlarging the useful parts. The shorthorns grad- 
ually extended their domain not only throughout the 
British Isles but to France and other countries. Im- 
provement continued steadily until English beef be- 
came the standard for the whole world. 

With the rapid increase of population and a decrease 
in the area of pasture land the time came when Great 
Britain had to begin to import meats from Australia 
and South America. At the end of the first decade of 
this century London alone needed 420,000 long tons of 
meat a year. Of this, over 122,000 tons came from 
South America, nearly 106,000 tons from Australasia, 
about 97,000 tons from continental Europe and North 
America, and less than 95,000 tons from the United 
Kingdom itself. 

For a very good reason there was for years a preju- 
dice against all imported meats, their use being con- 
fined exclusively to the poorer classes who could not 
afford to pay the higher prices — from three to twelve 



402 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

cents a pound more — asked for the meat from the 
home-grown or home-killed cattle. 

The very good reason for this preference for the 
home product was that imported meat was frozen, and 
the public promptly discovered that meat which had 
been frozen had little or no Flavor. 

That freezing spoils the Flavor of meat was known 
generations ago. Eugen Baron Vaerst, e. g., in his 
"Gastrosophie," Vol. I, p. 214, calls attention to this 
fact and explains why the meat should be preserved by 
chilling it; that is, by hanging it in an icy atmosphere 
which is constantly kept moving and which kills all 
germs of putrefaction without actually freezing the 
meat. 

Naturally this process costs more than simple freez- 
ing; yet some years ago attempts were made to bring 
chilled meat from as far as South America and Aus- 
tralia, and after some improvements had been made in 
the methods of transportation the results were most 
satisfactory. As one report said : "Part of a quarter 
that had been purposely sent a considerable distance 
and then cooked in the ordinary way for the table was 
found to be tender, full of flavor, and equal to any beef 
wherever grown." No chemicals were used. 

An amusing sequel to the story is told with much 
gravity in a consular report from Sheffield: "Frozen 
meat is much preferred by the trade for two reasons: 
It is cheaper, and the customers, after having used 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 403 

chilled meats, will not so readily take to the frozen 
again." 

The dear dealers, surely, ought to be allowed to have 
their own way. Why should they pay any attention 
to the consumer, with his ridiculous predilection for 
food that has Flavor 1 ? 

Germany protested violently in 1912 against at- 
tempts to introduce frozen meats, and the following 
consular information regarding another country is sug- 
gestive : 

"The sale of Argentine frozen meat in Switzerland 
is not so satisfactory as originally expected, and the 
large importers are now buying live cattle from that 
country, importing through Italy, and slaughtering 
there." 

SOUTHDOWN MUTTON. 

English mutton and lamb are as far-famed as 
English beef, and most deservedly so. The unnamed 
but well-informed author of the hand-book on Sheep 
in Vinton's Country Series (London) states the plain 
truth when he declares that "it was because our fore- 
fathers had, during many ages, been careful and skil- 
ful breeders of sheep that their descendants were en- 
abled to take the front rank in the world as improvers 
of these as well as of horses, cattle, and pigs." 

The English, undeniably, are in many ways an un- 
gastronomic people, yet when we reflect that they have 



404 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

given to the world the best butcher's meats — mutton 
and pork, as well as beef — their claim to rank high 
among gastronomic nations is established. Think of 
the important role butcher's meat plays in our dietary ! 

It was not by a mere accident that Great Britain won 
supremacy in this line, but in consequence of the appli- 
cation of principles of scientific breeding, resembling 
those to which the Californian, Luther Burbank, owed 
his startling successes in creating new fruits and veg- 
etables of superior size, tenderness, and Flavor. 

It took the combined efforts of several English "Bur- 
banks" to create the ideal mutton chops and joints. 
The two who deserve the lion's share of praise were 
Robert Bakewell and John Ellman. 

Bakewell came first. Before his day, the fleece was 
the thing sheep growers were mainly interested in. 
They wanted as big animals and as much wool as pos- 
sible. 

Bakewell was not interested in wool. What he was 
after was an improved mutton-producing breed — or 
rather one which, besides meat, yielded a large amount 
of fat. That was what the market of his day de- 
manded, in consequence of the way in which mutton 
was served. The usual practice, we read, "was to put 
a large joint of fat mutton over a dish of potatoes at 
the workman's table. The meat went to the head of 
the family; the potatoes, saturated with the meat and 
gravy, making a savory meal for the junior members. 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 405 

Thousands in the manufacturing and mining districts 
were for many years brought up in this way, so that, in 
breeding fat sheep, Bakewell had a better warrant than 
would apply in the present day, when fat is obtained in 
more palatable and digestible form in butter and its 
cheaper imitations, and when the working classes, as 
well as others, prefer to have lean and juicy mutton." 

An anecdote in Pitt's "General Survey of the Agri- 
culture of Leicester" (1809) throws further light on the 
situation: "Your mutton is so fat that I cannot eat 
it," said a gentleman to Bakewell, who replied: "I do 
not breed mutton for gentlemen, but for the public; 
and even my mutton may be kept leaner to suit every 
palate by stocking harder in proportion and by killing 
the sheep in time." 

Gradually the "public's" taste for mutton became 
more "gentlemanly." At present the article most in 
demand is a carcass weighing about twenty pounds per 
quarter "with a large preponderance of lean flesh." 

The change was accelerated by the activity of the 
Ellman family. Whereas Bakewell had operated with 
the long-wool Leicester breed, the meat of which was 
coarse-grained, with little delicacy or Flavor, the Ell- 
mans revealed to the world the superlative gastronomic 
attributes of mutton yielded by the short-wool South- 
downs. 

In muttonland the Southdown is what the Bresse is 
in the chicken world. 



4o6 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

In London markets you may find palatable meat cut 
from the carcasses of the Wensleydale, the Suffolk, the 
Dorset, the Exmoor, the Irish Roscommon, and other 
breeds ; but the three breeds which are rated highest for 
epicures are the Southdown, the Welsh Mountain, and 
the Scotch Black-faced. 

Note that all three are mountain sheep. It is to the 
hill-lands we must go for meat of the finest Flavor. 
As a rule, we read in the admirable Vinton book re- 
ferred to, "the fleezy denizens of the mountains and 
downs were distinguished by the excellence of their 
mutton, their active habits, necessitated by long jour- 
neys in search of the scanty food that was available, 
conducing to the development of the finest quality of 
meat." 

This point is gastronomically so very important that 
I will quote also what Professor Tanner wrote on it, 
as long ago as 1869, in a paper on the "Influence of 
Climate, etc., on Sheep," published in the "Journal of 
the Royal Agricultural Society of England" : 

"The quality of the meat depends upon the lean 
portion being tender and charged with a rich juice; 
and these results can only be obtained from an animal 
of mature age, of active habits, and fed upon short, 
sweet herbage. Ry activity of body the muscles are 
brought into exercise, and a healthy growth is the con- 
sequence. The food being short and sweet compels the 
sheep to take plenty of exercise to gather their supplies, 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 407 

and the herbage being sweet and nutritious, in contra- 
distinction to that which is coarse and immature, ren- 
ders the meat savory, the gravy dark and rich, and the 
meat palatable and digestible." 

Professor Tanner evidently understood the impor- 
tance of having the right kind of feed— a subject on 
which much more will be said in a later chapter, under 
the head of "Feeding Flavor Into Food." 

The Southdown sheep, which have been happily 
called "small in size but great in value," inhabit a dis- 
trict the characteristics of which explain the incompar- 
able Flavor of their mutton. The South Downs of 
Sussex, from which they derive their name, "consist of 
a range of low, chalky hills, five or six miles in 
breadth, stretching along the coast for a distance of up- 
wards of sixty miles and passing into the chalky hills 
of Hampshire in the west." 

All the Southdown mutton, as a matter of course, 
does not come from one locality. The breed has been 
widely spread over the country and also used for cross- 
ing; but under similar conditions there is no reason why 
first-class mutton should not be produced in many lo- 
calities. Naturally, substitution is practised; and in 
England, as elsewhere, the consumer is largely de- 
pendent on the honesty of his butcher. If the butcher 
is a wise man, anxious to get rich, he will always pro- 
vide the best to those who know the difference and are 
willing to pay for it. 



408 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

John Ellman devoted half a century to the improve- 
ment of Southdown mutton, which is now grown in 
many English counties. Early maturity has been one 
of the points aimed at; to-day Southdowns are fit for 
the butcher at thirteen to fifteen months, and weigh 
many pounds more than their predecessors did. Some 
epicures still ask for well-aged meat, but the great buy- 
ing public "prefer tender, fine-grained meat cut from 
young sheep." 

In some parts of the United States there is a decided 
prejudice against mutton. No doubt this is due to the 
fact that many local markets are supplied with the mut- 
ton of sheep which are raised chiefly for their wool and 
yield inferior meat. It would hardly do to throw away 
the carcases of these animals after they have served 
their purpose. But surely those who can afford to 
pay for better meat from "mutton-sheep," ought 
everywhere to have a chance to do so. Mountains 
abound in our country, and the breeders can, as al- 
ready intimated, make sheep perform any function 
they choose quite a la Burbank. 

We need men of brains who will let our gastronomic 
demands guide them to wealth along this line as along 
so many others. Valuable hints may be obtained in 
the Vinton book, from which I have repeatedly quoted. 1 

1 "Sheep: A Practical Hand-book." With chapter on Management 
and Feeding, ioo pp. Price i shilling. London : Vinton & Co., 
Chancery Lane, Beam's Building. It is one of a series which includes 
cattle, horses, dogs, poultry, etc. 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 409 

One more citation from this creamy little book will 
help to emphasize the statement I have just made: 

"At the time of writing the importations of foreign 
mutton are very large, as they have been for some years. 
In this way there is an abundant supply of cheap, whole- 
some food, which, however, lacks the flavor and quality 
of the home-bred mutton, and those who can afford it 
will always give a higher price for the latter. The ob- 
ject, therefore, of the home-breeder is to produce the 
very best description of mutton, for which there is an 
increasing demand." 

WILTSHIRE BACON. 

In the restaurants and hotels of France and Switzer- 
land, no less than in those of London, York ham is 
often served, and York ham at its best is considered 
by epicures equal to the hams of Prague or Westphalia. 
But if the English hams must share honors with the 
products of Germany and Bohemia, when it comes to 
bacon, Britannia rules the world. 

Let not that seem a trifling matter to any one. Bacon 
— I mean smoked bacon — is one of the most useful and 
delicious of all appetizers, alone or with other meats. 
It is a great tonic, too, on account of its exceptional 
nutritive value. Anemic individuals should eat it 
every morning; it is beneficial to consumptives whose 
digestive powers are not too enfeebled ; and for nursing 
mothers it is an ideal food. I remember reading in a 



410 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

medical journal that the health of babies is often won- 
derfully improved if the mother eats bacon — good 
bacon, such as one can get in England often and in 
America sometimes. The drugged, denatured, indi- 
gestible rubbish usually sold in the United States as 
"bacon," is not fit for food. The men who make it or 
sell it ought to be imprisoned ; some day they will be. 

In view of the nutritive value of bacon and its ex- 
quisite Flavor when properly cured, it seems strange 
that Continental nations have not learned how to make 
it, except those which, like Denmark and Sweden, cater 
for the English market. Canada also caters to this 
market and Canadian bacon enjoys a much better repu- 
tation at home and abroad than that made in the United 
States, with a few honorable exceptions. 

In England, also, bacon was not always appraised 
at its true value. Dryden, we are informed, "honestly 
liked the flitch of bacon better than more delicate 
fare" ; but he deemed it necessary to apologize for hav- 
ing "a very vulgar stomach." 

Doubtless, in his day, it took a robust stomach to di- 
gest bacon, and doubtless, also, it was not so delicate 
and so well-flavored as it is now. Wiltshire bacon is, 
like Southdown mutton, the outcome of years of Brit- 
ish breeding on scientific and gastronomic principles. 

Professor Robert Wallace of the University of Ed- 
inburgh tells in his "Farm Live Stock of Great Brit- 
ain" what happened: 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 411 

"A great change has within comparatively recent 
years come over the system of feeding pigs, as well as 
of curing their carcases. A generation ago it was the 
custom to kill pigs about two years old, at enormous 
weights, after the flesh had become coarse. The 
method of curing left the lean portion gorged with salt, 
hard, indigestible and uninviting: then it was an ad- 
vantage to have a large proportion of fat to lean. 
Now, however, the system of mild-curing renders the 
flesh sweet and juicy, and all eflorts are directed 
towards the production of as great a proportion of lean 
to fat as possible. The large increase of the consump- 
tion of fresh pork has also encouraged the demand for 
young lean bacon ; and on the other hand the change of 
fashion which has put young and tender pork on the 
market has helped to increase its consumption." 

Of the many English breeds the Tamworth has been 
found the best bacon pig. It is one of the eldest breeds 
and is nearly related to the wild boar. It benefited by 
the methods of improvement inaugurated by Bakewell 
and his pupil, Colling; together with some other Eng- 
lish breeds, it has helped to modify, and in some cases 
has eliminated, the kinds of pigs indigenous to Euro- 
pean countries. The Danish curers admit that without 
the importation of stock from England "their bacon 
would never have taken such high rank in the world's 
markets." 

In the United States, unfortunately, most of the 



412 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

breeds are lard-hogs. "Bacon pigs," says Professor 
Robert Wallace, "fed on Indian corn degenerate into 
lard-hogs." 

Now lard is doubtless a profitable article to raise, 
both for home use and for export. But in the kitchen 
the use of lard is an anachronism, since it has become 
generally known that butter and olive oil and beef suet 
are far superior to it in the yield of agreeable Flavors. 
Yankee ingenuity may even succeed in producing 
really palatable vegetable oils for cooking — a consum- 
mation devoutly to be wished, because it will help 
along the efforts to substitute the bacon pig for the 
lard hog. 

When Julius Sterling Morton was United States 
Secretary of Agriculture he published a document which 
attracted much attention. It was based mainly on a 
communication received from an American official in 
England who advised American farmers, if they would 
secure a share of the profitable Danish and Canadian 
trade in cured bacon of a superior quality, to give up 
the various American breeds and substitute the British 
Tamworths or their crosses. That was many years 
ago, but American bacon is still for the most part what 
it should not be, although efforts have been made to im- 
prove it. 

In the "Journal of the (British) Board of Agricul- 
ture" ( 1909-10, pp. 99-107) there is an interesting arti- 
cle on Cooperative Bacon Curing, the author of which 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 413 

says that the most useful breeds of pigs in the United 
Kingdom for bacon are Yorkshire and Berkshire breeds. 
But "a pure breed of pigs is not wanted by the bacon 
curer. What he wants is a bacon pig, and this is an 
animal which does not belong to any particular breed." 

What is a bacon pig*? The same writer answers: 
"A bacon pig should mature in about seven months 
and should weigh about 168 pounds. This yields the 
best and most profitable bacon. A bacon pig, further- 
more, must be long in body and deep in side. 
This form is desirable because it is the side of the hog 
that furnishes the best and most expensive cuts, and it 
is necessary to have as much as possible of this at the 
expense of the other parts." 

Bacon curing as an organized industry is not much 
over half a century old. The Wiltshire cure of bacon 
is, however, referred to as far back as 1 705 by Edward 
Lisle, in his "Observations in Husbandry." Many 
years later there came a great expansion of trade in 
Wiltshire County which made the name world-famed. 
To this day the bulk of British bacon is cured in Wilt- 
shire fashion in whole sides. 

There are about fifty bacon factories in the United 
Kingdom. While their capacity is not so great as that 
of the factories in the United States, the treatment and 
quality of American meat are, as the writer just cited 
remarks, "much below the standard aimed at in the 
United Kingdom, and notwithstanding the immense 



4H FOOD AND FLAVOR 

supplies of bacon which reach our country from abroad, 
the high price of the home product is on this account 
maintained." 

It must not be supposed that all the bacon offered 
for sale in England is of superior quality. Sanders 
Spencer complained some years ago that the Irish 
bacon-curers were resting on their laurels; that a very 
large proportion of the pigs found in England "would 
be looked upon with disgust by the Danes and Ca- 
nadians and that much of the meat from our home-bred 
pigs is inferior to a great deal of imported pork." 

The temptation to use denaturing chemical preserv- 
atives and to smoke insufficiently, or not at all, in order 
to save weight exists in England as in America and 
must be combated by the consumer. 

Extra choice specimens still come from some English 
hill farms, and the superexcellence of this bacon is due 
chiefly to its being skilfully smoked in the old-fash- 
ioned smoke house, which cures thoroughly while 
avoiding the rankness that comes from too rapid curing 
with very strong smoke. Properly smoked bacon is 
fragrant, like a flower. The other kind is n't. The 
test is a very simple one: if the odor makes your 
mouth water, it is all right. 

Not only "hill-farmers" but thousands of others 
have a chance to get rich by catering to the gastronomic 
demands of the time for the best bacon, ham, and fresh 
young pork. . 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 415 

"The modern method of pig feeding has shown," as 
an expert informs us, "that a combination of separated 
milk and cereals is by far the best fattening material, 
and the future of the bacon-curing industry is there- 
fore, to a large extent, in the hands of dairy farmers." 

Important information on this point was gathered 
for the benefit of American farmers by Consul Homer 
M. Byington, of Bristol, and printed in the "Daily 
Consular and Trade Reports" for January 4, 1912. 
Among other things, he wrote that "Wiltshire cured 
hams and bacon command a higher price than the hams 
and bacon of any other country. It is therefore of in- 
terest to ascertain why this should be so. One of the 
most prominent experts in the industry has stated that 
it is almost entirely a question of feeding. The fine 
breed of hogs kept by the best farmers in Wiltshire, 
Somerset, and Dorset are fed principally upon skim 
milk and barley meal. It is claimed by the English 
producers that American hogs are practically all fed 
on corn, which, although a perfectly wholesome food, 
tends to make the hog fat, and a little mellow, whereas 
feeding by the British method gives a meat beautifully 
white and as solid as meat need be." Referring to a 
leading Wiltshire curer, the Consul continues: 

"This latter firm, although purchasing 2,000 to 
3,000 hogs per week from farmers in the surrounding 
territory, does not allow any breeder under contract to 
give his animals refuse for food. The pigs are subject 



416 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

to an ante-mortem and a post-mortem examination by 
a qualified veterinary surgeon and medical officer of 
health. No boracic acid or other injurious preserva- 
tive is used in curing." 

In Germany, where one gets not only hams of the 
best quality, but excellent roast pork, many others be- 
sides farmers have taken to raising pigs. In 1873 there 
were only 7,124,088 pigs in the country; in 1907 there 
were over 22,000,000. The number of sheep has de- 
creased in about the same proportion because three hogs 
can be raised by a peasant where he could not graze 
one sheep. 

Pigs are particularly profitable because they can be 
fed largely on kitchen refuse and unsalable skim milk 
and because a pig "will produce a pound of meat from 
a far less weight of food than will either sheep or 
cattle." 

By "mixing brains with the food," the profits can 
be enormously increased. Let me ask every American 
and English farmer to put the following words of 
England's leading authority, Sanders Spencer, into his 
pipe and smoke them slowly and thoroughly: 

"This selection of a compact, thick-fleshed, and pure 
quality sire is of even greater importance in the pig 
department of the farm than in many others, as our ob- 
ject is to breed a pig which is capable of converting a 
large quantity of food into the largest amount of fine 
quality of meat, and is so formed that the latter is 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 417 

placed on those portions of the pig's body which realize 
the largest price in the market} 

There is a funny story of a farmer who gave his pigs 
all they could eat one day and starved them the next, 
in order to have his bacon nicely streaked with alternate 
layers of fat and lean. In England they seem to have 
a number of these ingenious farmers; at any rate, in 
Wiltshire bacon there is always plenty of lean meat. 
And how delicious it tastes when grilled, or baked in a 
roasting pan on a wire rack from which the fat drips to 
the bottom of the pan ! 

When the bacon is too fat to suit the native con- 
noisseur it is apparently exported to America and sold 
at fancy prices to people who have more money than 
knowledge. 

Gastronomic demands suggest many opportunities 
to get rich, particularly along this line. Spencer 
speaks of the "marvelous increase in the proportion of 
the inhabitants of the British Isles who now eat pork." 
Ireland exported nearly $17,500,000 worth of pork 
products in 1909. The slaughter houses of Denmark 
deal with over a million pigs a year, largely for export 
to the United Kingdom, which, in 1911, imported 
altogether nearly $100,000,000 worth of bacon and 
other pork products. 

In epicurean France pork gains rapidly on other 
meats and the Germans eat nearly twice as much pork 

1 "Pigs for Breeders and Feeders." London : Vinton & Co, 



418 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

as they do beef. The figures, in pounds, of the per cap- 
ita consumption in the Empire for the first three months 
of 1912 stood in this ratio: Mutton 0.33; veal, 1.54; 
beef, 7.87; pork, 14.55. 

FAIR PLAY FOR PIGS. 

In the United States, also, the demand for pork 
products is growing. It would grow very much more 
rapidly were it not for three drawbacks: the custom 
of denaturing hams and bacon and of marketing the 
tough meat of old lard-pigs, and the impudent sale to 
the public of the products of swill-fed hogs that are 
not fit to eat. 

It is impossible to place too much emphasis on the 
fact that no matter of how fine a breed the pig may be, 
its meat is spoiled if the feed given it is of an offensive 
nature. Farm-kitchen refuse is harmless when mixed 
with milk and greens, but porkers fed on city swill and 
garbage do not yield palatable meat. 

Pigs seldom have fair play. Most farmers lower 
the value of the pork they raise by not giving the ani- 
mals fresh air, sunshine, some exercise, and clean sties. 
In these respects we are not the only sinners. From 
an admirable editorial article in the London "Times" 
of June 27, 1912, I cite the following: 

"The pig is generally kept in conditions of a grossly 
unsanitary kind. He is quite a cleanly animal if left 
to himself, but he is kept in sties which compel him to 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 419 

wallow in filth all day and to sleep in a horribly con- 
fined and polluted atmosphere when he seeks shelter. 
Nature did not construct him for such conditions, but 
for an open-air life, and it is not really surprising that 
he develops swine-fever, which, by the way, is remark- 
ably like the fevers that afflict overcrowded, filthy, and 
unventilated human dwellings. Cowhouses are regu- 
lated, but pigsties are not. Their position, however, is 
regulated in a way that presses very hardly upon cot- 
tagers. It is calmly assumed that pigsties must be 
dirty and offensive, so instead of insisting that they 
shall be clean, legislation decrees that they shall be at a 
distance from dwellings which makes it impossible for a 
cottager to pay his rent with cheaply raised bacon." 

Pigs that are overfed and denied fresh air, sunshine, 
exercise, and a clean bed cannot possibly yield meat 
with a tempting Flavor, for such animals are really dis- 
eased — as unhealthy as the slum-dwellers in our large 
cities, whom no cannibal would touch. 

The best American ham, as everybody knows, is the 
Virginia, cut from hogs that roam the woods, live on 
acorns and beech nuts and are thoroughly healthy. 

The attitude of the ancient Britons toward the pig 
was one almost of reverence, not only because of its 
utility in the larder, but because it fed on the acorns 
from the sacred oaks. 

In those days all British pork was no doubt similar 
to the meat of the young wild boar. Civilization, as 









w 









$WN 




S&W r 



The Boar 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 421 

in so many other things, brought on a temporary de- 
terioration which caused pork to be despised and con- 
sidered fit only for those who had not the means to buy 
something better; and it is only now that we are com- 
ing to realize fully that the fault was that of the farm- 
ers who, by refusing to give the pigs fair play, made it 
impossible for them to come up to the highest epicurean 
standard as regards Flavor. 

According to high geological authority, the boar, 
from whom our domestic pigs are descended, was coeval 
with the extinct species of the mastodon and the 
dinotherium, and "hence must be regarded as the most 
ancient of our domesticated animals." 

An aristocrat, in other words, is the pig! He is 
selfish, like most "aristocrats" — that cannot be de- 
nied; but he is clean — even his mud baths are taken 
merely to cool off or to scour his skin. Trainers, more- 
over, will tell you that he is one of the most intelligent 
of animals. 

Pig brains are good to eat, too — better than calves' 
brains, but are usually sold as calves' brains because 
that 's what the ignorant purchaser asks for. And pork, 
young, tender, and not too fat, is good all the year 
round, not only in the months which have an R in them. 

GROUSE AND GRILLED SOLE. 

Wild boars no longer roam the forests of England. 
Sportsmen do their pig-sticking in the jungles of India. 



422 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

But venison in season is still in evidence, and the hare 
will never be extinct, though he now comes to London 
chiefly in shiploads from Australia. 

The well-informed editor of the "Hors d'CEuvre" 
department of the "Pall Mall Gazette" gives an amus- 
ing glimpse of the situation as regards English and 
Scotch venison, which he considers a veritable delicacy, 
preferable to the highly-sauced venison of France and 
Germany : 

"We ought really to eat more venison when in sea- 
son, but if the ordinary housewife were asked to pro- 
vide it quite in the ordinary way for an ordinary dinner 
at home, she would be entirely nonplussed. 'But the 
butcher does not keep it.' 'Try the poulterer.' 'The 
poulterer says he can get it at a day's notice.' Why 
all this fuss? Venison is a national dish; it is not ex- 
pensive; it is most nutritious and wholesome. Some 
one ought to 'buck up' the venison market." 

Among British feathered animals the best is the 
grouse, "the only really native game bird of these 
islands." It comes to London by fast expresses from 
the North — recently also from Ireland, which would be 
a finer grouse country, were it not for poachers. For 
the first days of the season grouse bring easily a guinea 
a brace in London market, cheaper ones being cold- 
storage suspects. Later on — thanks to rational meth- 
ods of game preservation — they pour in daily by the 
tens of thousands and come down to 8s. or less a brace. 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 423 

Though never as cheap in the restaurants as partridge 
is in Germany, grouse is worth its price when cooked in 
the English way, which preserves all the woodland 
flavor of the bird. 

English farmers have not waked up to the oppor- 
tunities that lie in catering to the demand for fresh- 
killed poultry of all kinds. The best restaurants get 
their supplies usually from France. There is in the 
Kingdom not even one adult fowl per acre of cultivated 
land. Here are possibilities of tremendous improve- 
ments, for, as Professor Edward Brown of the Ontario 
Agricultural College has truly said: "Masses of 
people living under highly artificial conditions must 
have food high in nutritive elements, easily digested 
and palatable, in which respect eggs stand first among 
all natural products and poultry not far behind." 

A well-known poulterer is cited as saying in regard 
to the London markets: "Fat goslings and ducks are 
in good demand, and the best prices are being given 
for them. One hundred and fifty years ago tens of 
thousands of geese and turkeys were reared in Suffolk, 
Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and adjacent counties. The 
numbers now are, in comparison, insignificant. Never- 
theless, the industry is one which might be made one of 
great importance and quite comfortable profits." 

A very different situation confronts us when we look 
at the supply of seafood. Here the British Isles hold 
their own in competition with any country, and the 



424 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

methods adopted to ensure a daily supply of fresh fish 
cannot be too urgently commended to American fish 
dealers. 

One of the most interesting sights in London is Bil- 
lingsgate market. Fish have been sold here for sev- 
eral centuries, but under changing conditions. No 
longer will you find here the "fat, motherly flatcaps, 
with fish-baskets hanging over their heads instead of 
riding-hoods, with silver rings on their thumbs, and 
pipes charged with 'mundungus' in their mouths, sit- 
ting on inverted eel-baskets and strewing the flowers of 
their exuberant eloquence over dashing young town- 
rakes who had stumbled into Billingsgate to finish the 
night. . . . But the town-rakes kept compara- 
tively civil tongues in their heads when they entered 
the precincts of the Darkhouse. An amazon of the 
market, otherwise known as a Billingsgate fish-fag, 
was more than a match for a Mohock," as George 
Augustus Sala remarked in his "Twice Round the 
Clock, or the Hours of the Day and Night in London." 

Gone are these amazons who by their abusive speech 
gave a new word to the English language. Men now 
monopolize Billingsgate Market, and the joke of it is 
that these men, as we found them at six o'clock on a 
September morning, are the very pink of politeness, 
most courteously ready to answer your questions re- 
garding different fishes, and cockles, and periwinkles, 
though they know you are not there to buy. Even the 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 425 

rough, hurrying fish-porters make way for you to pass, 
and the auctioneers stop to warn you against places 
where your clothes might get soiled by drippings. 

Billingsgate is now entirely given over to the whole- 
sale fish-trade. The smell of it, fish-like but not 
ancient — for it is a clean place- — easily guides you to 
the spot from the nearest station of the subway's inner 
circle. The streets near it are wet with the drip of 
fish-filled boxes, and crowded with wagons that are 
being loaded with the town's provisions of sea food— 
strictly fresh every day. 

Billingsgate Market being on the water's edge all 
the fish is unloaded direct from the fishing boats. Pro- 
cessions of porters come from the boats, each with a 
great box full of fish balanced on the top of his head, 
on a queerly-shaped, padded, waterproof hat made 
expressly for this work. The fish are kept cool with 
loose ice, but are not frozen. The Spanish mackerel 
with their dark markings and opaline sides offer the 
most beautiful sight of all, so freshly caught that their 
colors are as vivid as when they left the water. 

Besides these are whitings, flounders, pale-brown sole, 
halibut, turbot, all shining from the sea, and among 
the shell-fish may be seen oysters, huge crabs, lobsters, 
— white flecked dark green ones — periwinkles, and 
cockles. The latter look somewhat like very small 
clams, and they are sold cooked, having been separated 
from their shells by large sieves. 



426 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

In the best New York restaurants you are not sure 
of getting fresh fish when you order it. In the best 
London restaurants you are. Probably some of the 
fish we saw that morning at Billingsgate was served to 
us that evening for dinner. I mean sole, of course. 
We were to be in London only a week on this occasion, 
and when you are in London a week only it would be 
unutterably absurd not to eat grilled sole at least once 
a day, for you cannot get anything equal to it any- 
where else in the wide, wide world. 

There are some, I know, who place turbot above sole, 
and others even prefer plaice. Put no faith in such 
people; they could never be honestly elected to a place 
on the bench of the Gastronomic Supreme Court. 
Turbot is delicious, and so is plaice, and so are chinook 
salmon and our shad and whitefish. Each of these 
seems the best of all fishes while you are eating it; but 
sole actually is the best. How do I prove this? Like 
the musician who boasted he was the best horn player 
in the world, I do not prove it; I admit it. 

Seriously speaking, there can be no doubt that if a 
vote were taken on this question among the epicures 
of Europe, sole would win by a large majority. In 
Germany the Seezunge, or "sea-tongue," is the choicest 
of marine delicacies, and in France the chef's chief glory 
is his sole and the special sauce he serves with it. But 
nowhere is the sole so juicy and flavorful as in 
England; nor is it disguised there with any sauce, being 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 427 

served usually right off the grill. Grilled Sole is one 
of England's great specialties. 

Whitebait is another. It is not a distinct species but 
consists of the fry of herrings, smelts, sprats, sand-eels, 
weevers, etc. It is supposed to have been first served 
in 1780. To this day no tourist who likes good things 
to eat omits a trip to Greenwich to enjoy a dish of 
whitebait at headquarters in the ship tavern. When 
Thackeray was there he indulged in these reflections: 
"Ah, he must have had a fine mind who first invented 
brown bread and butter with whitebait! That man 
was a kind, modest, gentle benefactor to his kind. We 
don't recognize sufficiently the merits of those men who 
leave us such quiet benefactions. A statue ought to 
be put up to the philosopher who joined together this 
charming couple." 

Yarmouth bloaters and other cured fish are British 
specialties relished the world over. But the best of 
them is Finnan haddock, so named after Findon, a fish- 
ing village near Aberdeen where haddock smoking with 
peat or oak dust has attained perfection. There are 
flavorless imitations, preserved with pyroligneous acid. 
The genuine are cured in smoke houses. The condi- 
mental value of smoke is illustrated by the fact that 
while fresh haddock is by no means rated among the 
finest fishes, finnan haddie is one of the very best of 
cured fishes. 

The Whitstable oyster is still another marine spe- 



428 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

cialty enjoyed, not only throughout the British Isles 
as one of the most precious "natives," but also on the 
Continent. Far away Austria imports only $10,000 
worth of oysters a year from all sources, but from Ber- 
lin and other German cities come large orders for the 
best English bivalves. France also takes them, but 
not on a large scale, as her own oyster production is 
large. 

The best Whitstable oysters- — from the coasts of 
Kent and Essex — are known as royals and cost in 
restaurants three or four shillings a dozen, which is 
considerably more than the price charged in our own 
restaurants. Whether they are worth more is a much 
disputed point. Most Americans object to what 
they call the coppery taste in English and Northern 
European oysters. Paderewski agreed with those who 
pronounce the English oyster superior to the Ameri- 
can. I suggested that he probably had had the 
"floated" American oysters only. Certainly I have 
never tasted oysters with a more delicious Flavor than 
genuine Blue Points, Cotuits and Lynnhavens. The 
English natives are small, juicy, and fragrant of the 
sea — great appetizers indeed. 

Alas, in England also the sewage plague has cast 
its blight on the shellfish business. Two decades ago 
160,000,000 oysters are said to have been landed an- 
nually. In 1911 the number fell forty or fifty mil- 
lions short of that figure because of typhoid fever and 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 429 

other diseases traced to the eating of oysters from pol- 
luted beds. The importation of American oysters 
was only at the rate of 100 barrels a week in 1911, as 
against 2,000 barrels fifteen years earlier. 

Of the other British shellfish the periwinkle is much 
appreciated by the epicurean French who, not satisfied 
with importing them from England in bulk have also 
brought them over to plant in their own beds. They 
are boiled a few minutes in salted water and served 
with butter as an entree, usually at the second morn- 
ing meal. 

COVENT GARDEN MARKET SCENES. 

That the English do not live on butcher's meats 
and marine food alone, is made manifest by a matutinal 
visit to Covent Garden. 

"In Covent Garden a filthy noisy market was held 
close to the dwellings of the great. Fruit women 
screamed, carters fought, cabbage stalks and rotten 
apples accumulated in heaps at the thresholds of the 
Countess of Berkshire and of the Bishop of Dunham" 
— such is Macaulay's picture of this market at the close 
of the seventeenth century. It is still given up en- 
tirely to vegetables, fruits, and flowers, but is now 
clean, orderly, and not especially noisy, as markets go 
— not so noisy, perhaps, as some of the operas per- 
formed in the neighboring Covent Garden Theater, 
the resort of fashionable society. 



43o FOOD AND FLAVOR 

In September we found the flower pavilions the most 
interesting part of the market. Chrysanthemums with 
rich, deep-colored blossoms were the reigning favorites. 
Conspicuous among their rivals were the dahlias, gaudy 
and varicolored, some of them solid as cabbage heads, 
others strangely-quilled. Bright autumn leaves, re- 
calling New England, attracted our attention. In one 
spot golden chrysanthemums and melons of exactly the 
same shade made a beautiful picture. 

On the whole the vegetable quarters are not specially 
interesting, particularly when one has seen the Halles 
Centrales of Paris. Flowers do not, as in Paris, crowd 
in among them, nor are the streets picturesque and slip- 
pery with many shades of green refuse. The carts are 
not emptied as they are in Paris, but form each its own 
stall. All the vegetable pictures are "skied," and are 
far less attractive than when they lie, in orderly con- 
fusion, all over the market streets. Celery, the first we 
had seen, was enormous, but deep green, instead of 
white, like ours. Many of the provisions are packed 
and sold hidden in large round baskets. A perfect 
tower of Babel, ten baskets in all, is one man's load, car- 
ried on his head, but they are evidently empty, as 
two seem to be as heavy a weight as a man cares to bal- 
ance when they are full. 

George Meredith is quoted as having said to a friend 
that he would be a vegetarian if he could get his veg- 
etables decently cooked. 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 431 

There are a few vegetarian restaurants in London, 
and probably there would be many more if the English 
knew, as several Continental nations know, the art of 
cooking greens and roots in a savory manner. Sir 
Henry Thompson grew enthusiastic over the "delicious 
characteristic flavor" of English garden peas, picked 
young and cooked a V Anglais e^, which is a better way 
than any French fashion of cooking them. Vegetable 
marrow tastes better in England than anywhere else, 
and the mushrooms are good. But on the whole 
England has a great deal to learn from France regard- 
ing variety and the best ways of growing and cooking 
vegetables. 

Salad plants, in particular, are not appreciated as 
they should be. Read this wail, for an illustration, 
from a Covent Garden market report in the London 
"Telegraph": "Nothing short of a prolonged heat 
wave induces people to eat liberally of this health-giv- 
ing vegetable. It was pitiful, yesterday, to see stacks 
of first-rate lettuce utterly neglected. The very best 
samples, carefully selected and packed in boxes, real- 
ized no more than 6d. per score — a score, by the way, 
being twenty-two heads. Any amount remained un- 
sold." 

Tomatoes are getting to be almost as popular as in 
America. In England, as elsewhere, there are those 
who maintain that "no salad is perfect without the 
inclusion of a little tomato" ; and of course the delicious 



432 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

"love-apples," as they used to be called, are eaten in 
many other ways, raw or cooked, grilled tomatoes be- 
ing an English specialty. 

That England is a great fruit country no American 
can admit, however much he may enjoy the luscious 
hot-house and wall-grown peaches, nectarines, melons, 
pears, and grapes. Fruit needs, above all things, sun- 
shine, and of sunshine we have a great deal more at 
home, especially in California. At Covent Garden and 
in the fruit shops of the metropolis there are indeed 
some tempting displays, but the prices are apt to stag- 
ger the visitor from across the Atlantic, who seldom 
pays more than a nickel for a peach or two — say two 
shillings a dozen at most — whereas in England peaches 
grown in orchards sell at retail for six to ten shillings a 
dozen, while those grown in hot-houses bring from fif- 
teen shillings ($3.65) to a guinea ($5.11) per dozen. 
If you told the average Londoner that in New York one 
can often buy five or six good cantaloupes for a shilling, 
he would not believe you without an affidavit signed by 
the Consul General. 

It may be said that owing to their cooler climate the 
inhabitants of the British Isles do not need fruit as 
much as we do, and that is true. Yet in all climates, 
seasons, and conditions of the weather fruit is healthful, 
and its Flavor is a great appetizer and aid to digestion. 
It is therefore encouraging to notice that strenuous ef- 
forts are being made not only to remove the old re- 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 433 

proach that English grapes and other hot-house 
products have more beauty than Flavor, but also to 
raise and import orchard fruits in such abundance as 
to bring them within the reach of the purchaser of mod- 
erate means. 

The growth of the banana trade strikingly illustrates 
this point. In the first years of this century this sweet 
and nutritious fruit was seldom seen in English mar- 
kets. To-day there is a whole fleet of steamers oc- 
cupied exclusively in bringing bananas from the West 
Indies and elsewhere to British ports. The change was 
greatly accelerated by the shrewdness of the importers, 
who freely advertised the merits of their goods in the 
newspapers, citing sample recipes for cooking them 
from a little book which is offered free. 

This method of educating the public to try new 
foods and dainties doubtless has a great future. The 
Germans have a saying : Was der Esel nicht kennt das 
frisst er nicht, which politely translated means "the 
public must be taught to eat things it does not know." 

A decade ago one seldom saw any grapefruit in 
England. It was Mrs. John Lane who taught Lon- 
doners the art of enjoying this most wholesome and 
palatable fruit — the queen of the citrus tribe. Its 
juice is the most marvelous combination of sour, bitter, 
and sweet in existence, and its charm grows on you 
from day to day. Mrs. Lane induced her greengrocer 
to keep some in stock, but ere long he confided to her 



434 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

that they were "bloomin' sour" and mostly a dead loss, 
for customers never bought them more than once. 
"They 're forever asking me how to eat 'em," he said, 
"and how should I know !" — here he wiped his hands 
hesitatingly on his apron— "but if I could tell 'em how, 
why the trade would be grateful ; anyhow, I 'd be." 

So Mrs. Lane wrote a little pamphlet in which she 
explained the secret of serving grapefruit sweetened in 
such ways that all may enjoy it. It is entitled "The 
Forbidden-Fruit or Shaddock; or Grapefruit, How to 
Serve and How to Eat It." (John Lane, Vigo Street, 
London.) 

Doubtless this pamphlet had much to do with in- 
creasing the number of grapefruit eaters in Britain, now 
said to be very large. It is well to know that there are 
many varieties, and that some are far inferior to others ; 
so if you eat one and it does not please you, don't be 
rash and say you do not like grapefruit. Try the other 
kinds. The best are neither too sour nor too bitter, and 
they have a "wild" fragrance as exquisite in its way as 
the marine tang of live oysters. When you get one of 
these you need none of the sugar, or the liqueur, or 
maraschino cherries nearly always served with grape- 
fruit. Just peel off the yellow skin, cut the fruit length- 
wise, separate the sections with your fingers, remove the 
membranes, and you have a pile of pulp resembling so 
many crab tails, which dissolve in the mouth and flood 
the palate with ambrosial Flavor. 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 435 

Oranges are good, but grapefruit is as superior to 
them as sour cherries are to sweet. 

One of England's chief claims to gastronomic dis- 
tinction is that her orchards include plenty of sour- 
cherry trees. A common French name for tart cherries 
is cerises anglaises, which seems to indicate that they 
are an importation from England. 

Epicures, from the ancient Lucullus, who introduced 
the sour cherry into Europe, to Paderewski, who eats 
no others, agree that, thoroughly ripened, it is far su- 
perior in Flavor to the sweet cherry, besides being more 
delicate, melting, digestible and wholesome. On a 
warm day nothing — not even a glass of lemonade or 
limeade — is so agreeably refreshing as a handful of 
Early Richmonds, Morellos, Montmorencys, or Bald- 
wins. 

A British expert claims that "despite the sunshine 
and climate of France, the quality and flavor of cherries 
grown in England are much superior to those of the 
foreign fruit." 

Of no product of his island is the Englishman more 
boastful than of his strawberries. Big they certainly 
are, and beautiful; also fragrant after a few days of 
sunshine. Freshness, which is of such great impor- 
tance in the case of these berries, is secured by growing 
them in enormous quantities within a twenty-mile 
radius of London. They are picked early — often by 
the light of lanterns — brought to the city, and deliv- 



436 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

ered to families for breakfast a few hours later. Usu- 
ally they are carefully graded, and you get what you 
order and pay for, be it "specials," "firsts," or "sec- 
onds." 

After all, the big strawberries, however luscious, are 
seldom so fragrant as the little French fraises des bois, 
or strawberry of the woods. These are imported to 
some extent; yet a writer in the London "Telegraph" 
remarks that "if home-growers were to market tiny 
specimens with ambrosial flavor there would be no sale 
for the fruit, nor would the wild strawberry of our 
hedgerows be appreciated by the pampered gourmets of 
London." If this is true, something must be wrong 
with these same pampered gourmets. Perhaps the wild 
berries are less fragrant than in France. In Oregon, as 
you drive along wood roads and fields, the air is heavy 
with the fragrance of wild strawberries. But the rich- 
est perfume of the kind I ever inhaled was, strange to 
say, in the far north — the Norwegian city of Molde, 
where two bowls of strawberries on the table made the 
hotel dining-room smell like an Oriental rose garden. 
It was in Norway, too, that I ate the best sour cherries 
I ever tasted. 

The fame of the British gooseberry has crossed the 
Atlantic, the jam made from it being purchasable in 
all the larger grocery stores throughout the United 
States and Canada. The gooseberry is indigenous to 
Great Britain, where it flourishes particularly well be- 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 437 

cause it does not need or desire much sunshine. This 
is doubtless the reason why the British berry is superior 
to the American. I have read in a London journal 
that "American visitors are highly appreciative of the 
flavor of English gooseberries, as those of their own 
country are not nearly so good. In hotels largely fre- 
quented by Transatlantic guests there is quite a brisk 
demand for the fruit, especially the large yellow 
'sulphur' berry and the 'white lion.' As judges of fruit 
Americans are proverbially keen, and their selections 
are usually worth following." 

MARMALADES, JAMS, AND BREAKFASTS. 

In the matter of bottled condiments, sauces, walnut, 
mushroom, tomato and other catsups, diverse pickles, 
and biscuits in endless variety (of which, as of the 
bottled things, millions of dollars' worth are exported 
annualfy), Great Britain is also preeminent; and what 
is particularly commendable is that British products for 
export are usually made as conscientiously as those for 
home consumption. You can buy them in a Japanese 
village, and be as sure of their excellence as if you got 
them in London. 

Gladstone was a great believer in jam. He con- 
stantly urged his countrymen to eat more of it and 
induced a number of them to go into the manufactur- 
ing business. Some of these lost money because the 
thing was overdone for a time. 



438 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

While good jams and jellies are made in. many coun- 
tries, in the matter of marmalade, Scotland has a 
virtual monopoly so far as superexcellence is concerned. 

Open an American cook book and you will find that 
the directions for making orange marmalade begin with 
the words, "Take one dozen oranges and four lemons," 
and end with the information that when bitter marma- 
lade is desired the bitter can be obtained by soaking the 
orange seeds overnight and adding the water drained 
from them to the other ingredients. 

A marmalade thus obtained is better than no marma- 
lade at all, but it is far inferior to the British product, 
which is made of special varieties of oranges. 

Inquiries having come from firms in the United 
States, the authorities in Washington asked Com- 
mercial Agent, John M. Carson, to find out the secret of 
the superior Flavor of Scotch marmalade. 

The information he obtained is so instructive that I 
must quote it, in part, from the "Daily Consular and 
Trade Reports" of February 17, 1911: 

British marmalade is produced from sour oranges and sugar. 
The best-known firms use almost exclusively the Seville (Spain) 
bitter orange, which has comparatively little pulp and consists 
mainly of rind, the substance most desirable for the making of 
good marmalade. Messina and Palermo "bitter" oranges, al- 
though not considered as good as those of Seville, are also used, 
but command a much lower price. With the exception of a 
very few firms who buy and "pulp" oranges at Seville and ship 
the pulp to England for preparation and canning by English 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 439 

factories, marmalade manufacturers buy the raw material in open 
market. London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Hull are the 
principal orange markets. The grower ships his product to his 
agents or to orange brokers or auctioneers, and it is then put up 
for sale to the highest bidder on a given date, in lots of scores, 
hundreds, or thousands of boxes, very much like wheat and other 
produce are sold in their respective exchanges, with the exception 
that in the case of oranges there are no "future sales," nor are 
"reserve" prices made. 

Oranges being perishable, and their attractiveness and fresh- 
ness continuing for so short a time, the brokers accept the high- 
est bids made on the day of sale and never reserve the fruit tor 
future offerings. The sales are held regularly on what are 
known as "market days." The character, quantities, qualities, 
and nativity of the fruit are made known to the trade by cata- 
logue several days in advance, consequently the auctions are 
always well attended and the bidding spirited. The London 
Fruit Exchange is located in the eastern section of the city in a 
large structure known as the "Monument Building." More 
than $12,000,000 per annum is the amount required to pay for 
the oranges sold in the English market, the great bulk of the 
sales being by public auction. Apples are sold in like manner, 
the aggregate annual sales averaging in value $10,000,000. 
The great Covent Garden market, in the heart of London, buys 
its supplies of fruits at the regular auction sales held at the Lon- 
don Exchange, and in turn the retail dealers are supplied from 
Covent Garden. . . . 

The law requires that marmalade shall be composed of 
orange and sugar exclusively, and if any other substance is em- 
ployed, no matter for what purpose, the manufacturer is liable 
to a heavy fine. It is generally conceded that the law is ob- 
served by English manufacturers. Fruit preservers as a rule 
use refined cane sugar, which they buy in the open market. 

Orange marmalade has made Scotland famous 



44o FOOD AND FLAVOR 

throughout the gastronomic world, which seems odd in 
view of the fact that the country is too far north to 
raise oranges. 

We shall see in the last chapter that the appreciation 
of bitter marks a higher stage of gastronomic culture 
than the liking for sweets or even for sour. The 
best orange mannalade is always bitter, and to this it 
owes not only much of its agreeable taste but its value 
as a tonic, the rind of the bitter orange being a valuable 
stomachic. It is therefore not strange that although 
there are many makers of this delicacy, the home de- 
mand often exceeds the supply, and that the new crop 
always is eagerly looked forward to. It has been 
claimed, with some show of reason, that British sturdi- 
ness is largely a result of the national custom of having 
bitter marmalade regularly served with breakfast. 

Breakfast! That word suggests another great 
service Britannia has done the gastronomic world. 
Nothing could be more irrational for normal persons 
than the continental habit of eating only bread and but- 
ter for breakfast and then having a second, heavier 
breakfast — dejeuner a la fourchette—at eleven or 
twelve o'clock to interrupt the morning's work in its 
full tide. Far better, both economically and hygienic- 
ally, is the English way — which fortunately we have 
adopted — of having a substantial breakfast, and then 
nothing more till lunch time, the best hour for which is 
one o'clock, as most of us know instinctively. 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 441 

A healthy person ought to have a good appetite in the 
morning, after a night's rest, and gratify it. Lunch 
should be light, and dinner, more substantial than 
breakfast, should begin not later than seven for persons 
who retire at an hour conducive to longevity — that is, 
an early hour. 

RESTAURANTS, CAKES, AND PLUM PUDDING. 

As a rule, British inns and restaurants serve food as 
badly cooked as it is in American "hash houses," if not 
more so. I have had experiences with meat pies and 
sausages, with several kinds of pastry and with taste- 
less vegetables that quite recalled the Arizona days 
before Fred Harvey came from England — as related in 
the first chapter of this book — to civilize our South- 
west. 

Adulteration of foods is largely practised, and many 
of them are denatured by the use of chemical preserva- 
tives, although in these respects there has been consid- 
erable improvement since the "Lancet" exposed "the 
appalling state of the food supply" and fearlessly gave 
the names and addresses of hundreds of manufacturers 
and tradesmen who sold adulterated articles. 

It was hoped that with the introduction of motoring 
there would come a revival of the good old coaching 
inns; but nothing of the sort has happened. According 
to the gastronomic editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette" 
what the touring motorist gets is "probably an Amer- 



442 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

ican preserved soup which tastes like boiled blankets, a 
few sardines, stale and too long opened, a joint which 
has either been overcooked or under-done, a sodden pan- 
cake with no suggestion of the real thing, and a piece of 
cheese which is obviously non-British. And for this 
he is charged at least five shillings. . . . On the 
Continent one can get an excellently cooked and served 
meal for half the price." 

While the English are thus their own severest critics, 
they do not hesitate, when brought to bay, to present 
the other side of the shield. In commenting on the 
Exhibition of the Cookery and Food Association in 
1912, the London "Telegraph" called attention to the 
fact that "typical dishes are served to perfection every 
day on innumerable English tables"; and the writer 
just quoted, referring to the fact that France, Austria, 
Hungary, Italy, and Switzerland had sent over experts 
to show how things are done in their countries, goes on 
to say that "it might humbly be suggested that our 
own cooks might show the foreigners something. Few 
cooks, other than English, can cook whitebait satisfac- 
torily; the same applies to Irish stew, steak, and kidney 
pudding with larks and oysters, to liver and bacon, to 
tripe and onions (no, not tripe a la mode de Caen), to 
a really good devil, and above all, to curry, wet or dry. 
. . . It is really about time that the British cook 
asserted himself." 

A German lexicographer calls attention to the fact 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 443 

that the United Kingdom has contributed at least half 
a dozen words to the international dining-room lan- 
guage: Beefsteak, roast beef, Irish stew, mock-turtle 
soup, pudding, and toast. He might have added 
marmalade and cakes. A firm in Germany once of- 
fered a thousand marks for a good Teutonic equivalent 
for "cakes" ; with what success I do not know. 

It is not strange that Continental manufacturers are 
so much interested in these British cakes and biscuits. 
They are favorites the world over because of their 
crispness and good Flavor, and the exports of them 
amount to about £1,400,000 a year. - 

Seven million dollars! Is there a better guide to 
wealth than gastronomy, the art of preparing and 
serving appetizing food? 

Plum pudding is another profitable product of Brit- 
ish manufacturing skill. 

Though it has been traced to a Teutonic origin 
(Pflaumen-grutze) it is now characteristically Angli- 
can, and the plum (Pflaume) has disappeared. In 
that monumental compendium of English philological 
erudition, Murray's "New English Dictionary," we 
read as one of the definitions of Plum : "a dried grape 
or raisin as used for puddings, cakes, etc.," and the editor 
adds: "This use probably arose from the substitution 
of raisins for dried plums or prunes as an ingredient in 
plum-broth, — porridge, etc., with retention of the name 
plum for the substituted article." 



444 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Considering the national liking for this pudding it 
is not surprising that the word plum for this favorite 
was retained, for "plum" also stands for tit-bit, or a 
good thing in general. As long ago as 1660 devotion 
to this dish was amusingly illustrated by these words in 
a mock sermon : "But there is your Christmas pye and 
that hath plums in abundance. . . . He that dis- 
covered the new Star in Cassiopeia . . . deserves 
not half so much to be remembered, as he that first 
married minced meat and raisins together." 

Until a few years ago the English housewife always 
boiled her own plum pudding. To-day she can buy it 
if she desires. It is made by machinery; hundreds of 
thousands of pounds are shipped to other countries an- 
nually; and it is claimed that this kind is as a rule su- 
perior in Flavor and digestibility to the home-made. 
It was during the Boer war that the export business 
received its first great impulse, thousands of pounds 
being sent to the soldiers in Africa to give them a taste 
of the Christmas dinner at home ; and now the pudding 
is made in such large quantities that the United States 
Government has begun to take cognizance of it in 
official reports. In the "Consular and Trade Reports" 
(1911) Commercial Agent, John M. Carson, had a two- 
page communication from which I cite the following: 

The extent and magnitude of the trade may be inferred from 
figures furnished by one of the several large manufacturers. In 
order to be prepared to meet the demand for their product, 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 445 

manufacturers begin active operations as soon as the new crops 
of raisins, currants, and other required fruits appear in Septem- 
ber. All the constituents of plum pudding, which do not in- 
clude plums, are prepared and manipulated by elaborate and 
expensive machinery. Currants are washed and stems removed, 
raisins are stoned, nuts are shelled and ground, oranges and 
lemons are peeled, the peel candied and cut up, eggs are beaten, 
and all other ingredients prepared by machinery. The manu- 
facturing firm alluded to, in order to supply their trade this 
season, used the materials and quantities given below. 



Pounds. 

Currants 145,800 

Sugar 101,250 

Peel 72,360 

Suet 72,360 

Bread crumbs 72,360 

Flour 54,000 

Raisins 48,330 



Pounds. 

Sultanas 48,330 

China ginger 3,5 10 

Spices 1,440 

Almonds 400 

Milk, gallons 948 

Rum, gallons 948 



Exclusive of milk and rum, the ingredients above enumer- 
ated aggregate 620,140 pounds used by a single manufacturer 
in supplying plum pudding to meet the demands of the Christ- 
mas season of 19 10, the number of puddings furnished aggre- 
gating 250,000. There are three or four other London manu- 
facturers each of whose output perhaps equaled that described, 
and there are a large number of smaller establishments in which 
plum pudding was supplied for home and foreign consumption. 

The pudding is put up in packages weighing one to five 
pounds each and securely packed to insure preservation and safe 
transportation. Properly prepared and packed the plum pud- 
ding of England, with ordinary care on the part of the house- 
wife, will retain its virtues for a year or more. 

Plum pudding has the evil repute of being indigesti- 
ble. An English friend informs me that while it cer- 



446 



FOOD AND FLAVOR 



tainly is so if boiled only three hours, as is usually done, 
it becomes as digestible as good bread if boiled seven 
hours. It is then compact and yet brittle. 

Still another profitable branch of the art of prepar- 
ing appetizing food is that of the cheesemaker. If im- 






WD 




Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese 

itation is the sincerest form of flattery, the English 
makers of Cheddar cheese have been flattered as few 
mortals have; for in the United States, as well as in 
Canada and Australia, most of the cheese made is of 
the Cheddar type. There would thus be no cause for 
exporting Cheddar, even if England had any to 
spare; nor is much of the Cheshire sent abroad, its 
fragile nature making it unsuitable for exportation, 
which is to be regretted, because in the opinion of Dr. 
Voelker, shared by many epicures, Cheshire is the finest 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 447 

flavored of British cheeses. It is made from milk 
which is perfectly sweet, and to this its special aroma 
has been attributed. For the third of the three best- 
known varieties of British cheeses — Stilton — there is a 
considerable demand for the tables of foreign epicures, 
as it exports well. 

Stilton is a blue-molded cheese, which is manufac- 
tured of unskimmed milk in a way similar to the 
methods of making the French Roquefort and the 
Italian Gorgonzola. Like those, it owes its piquant 
Flavor to the mold, which is artificially spread through- 
out the cheese in diverse ways. 1 

Every American tourist who visits London goes to 
take a meal at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, made famous 
by Dr. Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith, and for three 
centuries the haunt of literary men, including Dickens 
and Thackeray. Toasted cheese — cheese bubbling in 
tiny tins and tasting like Welsh rarebit — was the orig- 
inal specialty of this place and is still served unless you 
prefer a wedge of uncooked Cheshire. But what ulti- 
mately made this place renowned throughout the world 
was its lark pudding. 

Fortunately it is lark no more but pigeon pudding; 
at least, so it was frankly called when I ate it in Sep- 
tember, 1912. What else it is compounded of no one 
knows but the proprietor and the cook, who guard the 

1 For details regarding British cheeses see "Cheese and Cheese Mak- 
ing," by James Long and John Benson. London: Chapman & Hall. 



HAUNCH OF VENISON, 3/6. This day at 6 o'clock. 

Friday, 13th September, 1912. 

"BILL OF FAT^E. 

Ready from 12 noon to 9.30 p.m. s. a. 

SIMPSON'S FISH DINNER, consisting of 

three kinds of Fish ..... 3 g 

Dinner from the Joint ..... 2 6 

Dinner from one Special Dish .... 2 6 
Dinner from one Special Dish, with Joint to follow 3 o 
Dinner from two Special Dishes .... 3 6 
Thb above prices include Vegetables, CheeseT. Bread and Butter, and Salad. 

3otnts, 2/6 

Served Freshlt Cooked at the following hours. 



raou 
12.0 

9.30 



1.0 



Saddle of Mutton 



Saddle of Mutton 

Roast Sirloin of Beef 

Saddle of Mutton. Roast Sirloin Beef 

Boiled Beef 

Forequarter Lamb 

Roast Loin of Pork 

THE ABOVE PRICES INCLUDE VEGETABLES, CHEESEf. BREAD AND BUTTER, AND SALAD. 

Soups. 



5.30 Boiled Beef 

Roast Sirloin of Beef. 
6.0 Saddle of Mutton 

Roast Sirloin of Beef 

Forequarter Lamb 
7.30 Saddle of Mutton 
6.0 Haunch of Venison, 3/6 



Turtle, clear or thick - 


i 
• 3 


d. 



Green Pea 


• 1 


6 


Scotch Hotch-Potcib - 


1 





Ox Tail, clear or thick ■ 


• 1 





Thick Mock Turtle 


- 1 






Clear Mock Turtle 
Julienne • 
Macaroni 
Gravy • 
Vermicelli 
Tomato 



NOTE. — TF SERVED WITH JOINT OR SPECIAL DlSH TO FOLLOW. 6d 
EACH OF THE ABOVE. 

jfisb. 

Boiled Salmon and Lobster Sauce 
Boiled Turbot and Lobster Sauce 
Curried Turbot - 
Fried Turbot - 

Sole Souchet ..... 
Salmon Cutlets and Piquant or Indian Sauce 
Curried Prawns .... 
Fresh Herrings and Mustard Sauce - 

FRESHLV COOKED SALMON AND TURBOT (THE WHOLE FISH) SERVED D 



. 1 

• X 

t 1 

• 1 
•• 1 

• 1 

LESS WILL BB CHARGED FOR 



ILV PROM 12 NOON TO 0.30 P.M. 



Fish Pie 

Fish Balls or Cakes ■ 

Fried Whiting 
Whitebait 
NOTE, 



Stewed Eels, Port Wine or Parsley 

and Butter Sauce • • - 1 6 
Fillet of Sole, Fried or Boiled • -20 
Sole, Fried, Grilled or Boiled - -20 

IP SERVED WITH JOINT OR SPECIAL DlSH TO FOLLOW. 6d. LESS WILL BE CHARGED FOR 
EACH OF THE ABOVE. 



Plain Lobster 
Lobster Mayonnaise 



s d. 

2 6 

3 6 



Lobster Salad 
Salmon Mayonnaise 



s. d. 

3 
2 6 



WHITSTABLE NATIVE OYSTERS, 3/- per dozen. 

THE CHEDDAR AND CHESHIRE CHEESES SERVED HERE 



HAUNCH OF VENISON, 3/6. This day at 6 o'clock. 



Special Dtsbes, 2/6. 

HAM AND PEAS. HASHED VENISON. 

STEWED NECK OF LAMB AND PEAS. 

Curried Chicken Chicken Marengo Haricot Mutton 

Fricasse Chicken Stewed Pigeon Curried Fillets of Mutton 

Stewed Rump Steak Stewed Kidneys 

The above prices include Vegetables. Cheese! Bread and Butter, and Salad. 



FROM THE GRILL (15 to 30 minutes.) 
Porterhouse Steak - 



Mutton Cutlets, Tomato or Piquant 

Sauce 2 6 

Rump Steak • - • -26 

Grilled Fowl and Mushroom Sauce - 3 



The above prices include Vegetables. CHEESEt. Bread and Butter, and Salad. 



10 J Chump Chop - 
mins. [Loin Chop 



1 6 
1 3 



10 f Two Kidneys 
mins. { Lamb Chops 



Mixed Grill — Chop, Kidney and 
Sausage ..... 



1 3 

2 6 





<Bame. 






PARTRIDGES SI- each. GROUSE 5/- each. 








Dcfletables. 




1 


SEW PEAS, 6d. per portion. 






Beetroot. 3d. 


Tomato, Plain, 3d. Tomato, Grilled, H 


L 




Cucumber, 3d. 








Sweets. 




Tapioca Pudding - 

Mixture of Fruit 

Orange Fritters • 

Apple Fritters ... 

Madeira Jelly 

Damson Pie 


- 6d. 

- 6d. 
. 6d. 

• 6d. 

• 64 

- 64 


Prunes and Rice 
Apple Pie 
College Pudding • 
Sweet Omelette ■ 
Lemon Pudding 
St. Clair Pudding 
Rum Omelette ' - 




- 6d. 

- 6d. 

- 6d. 
V- 
od. 

. 64 
. 1/6 


Strawberry Crear 
Pineapple Water 


3ces. 


94 








Sunortea. 






Anchovy Toast, Fish or Paste 
Macaroni with Cheese 
Macaroni with Tomatoes 
Welsh Rarebit - 
Buck Rarebit 
Scotch Woodcock 


- 9d. 

- 6d. 

- 6d. 

- 6d. 

- 9d. 
• - 1/3 

Olives 


Anchovies, Plain 
Poached Eggs on Toast 
Sardines on Toast 
Bloaters Roes on Toast 
Stewed Cheese - 
Red Currant Jelly 
64 




• 64 
. 9d. 
. 94 

• 94 
- 64 
. 34 




Cea ano Coffee. 






Tea, per cup, 6d. Tea, pe 


r pot, 1/- Coffee, small cup, 4d., large, 64 

Dessert. 




Cream, 3d- 


PEARS, 6d. each. 


Almonds and Raisins, 9d. APPLES, 


3d. each. 



Attendance. 3d each person charged in The Bill. 

FINE OLD TAWNY PORT. 8d per glass. 

BASS & CO 'S PALE ALE on Draught 



WHITSTABLE NATIVE OYSTERS. 3/- per dozen. 

OBTAINED FIRST PRIZE AT THE DAIRY SHOW 1911. 



45o FOOD AND FLAVOR 

secret carefully. Kidney and steak and oysters are 
hinted at, and diverse strong spices are certainly in it. 

We entered the kitchen, but did not see the immense 
bowl that holds enough for sixty or seventy people, ac- 
cording to the booklet of ninety-two pages which tells 
the story of this eating place. Nor did we test the as- 
sertion that you can have two, three, or four helpings of 
the "pie" if you chose. 

To tell the plain truth, one was quite enough and 
more. Never in all my wanderings — not even in 
Spanish countries where cayenne pepper is the staff of 
life — had I put into my mouth a mess so peppered and 
otherwise overseasoned as this same fiery pigeon pie. 
And the taste lingered for hours, giving me time to call 
back to memory all that I had read about the condi- 
mental atrocities of the Middle Ages, when the porpoise, 
the whale, the seawolf made favorite dishes ; when po- 
tatoes were seasoned with nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper, 
lemon, sugar, and rose water; and meats were mal- 
treated even more barbarously. 

Quite as English as the Cheshire Cheese, and more up 
to date, is another London restaurant which all Ameri- 
cans visit — Simpson's, where joints are wheeled to 
you on little tables and you choose the particular cut 
you want. A glance at the bill of fare herewith repro- 
duced will interest those who have never had a chance 
to compare English with American menus. 

Colonel Newnham-Davis accomplished the task of 



BRITISH SPECIALTIES 451 

writing a book of three hundred and seventy-six 
pages on the restaurants of London entitled "Dinners 
and Diners." It is not so interesting or so 
useful a book as his "Gourmet's Guide to Europe," 
yet it succeeds in a gossipy way in giving the 
atmosphere of these places. The best of them are in 
most respects frankly Parisian in cuisine and menu. 
The epicurean Colonel found four dozen among them 
with sufficient individuality to claim separate chapters. 
Since the second edition of this book appeared (1910), 
some of the old houses have disappeared and many new 
ones of the highest class have been opened. At all of 
them you can get, besides French dishes, such British 
specialties as turtle, ox-tail, and mulligatawny soups, 
venison, rabbit, or veal and ham pies, and, with your 
fish and meats — hot or cold — all the fiery gherkins, 
chow-chow, and diverse pungent sauces and catsups 
you may desire. 

While these sharp condiments are for the most part 
special products of British ingenuity which cannot be 
duplicated elsewhere, it is likely that they will be less in 
demand in the future than they are now. They were 
invented to go with cold meats chiefly, and to give zest 
and varied Flavor to the monotonously recurring joints. 
But this monotony is disappearing; the number of 
national dishes is multiplying rapidly ; and, altogether, 
"there is now," as a London journal has remarked, "a 
cult of cookery in England such as has never been 
before." 







QVVS 




XI 

GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 

N the preceding pages I have neg- 
lected no chance to expose our short- 
comings, not with any muck-raking 
intentions but in order to show in 
how many ways we could profit by 
following the example set by Euro- 
pean nations. 

It is now time to raise our flag and 
do a little patriotic boasting. There is a gastronomic 
America as well as an ungastronomic America; we 
have unequaled opportunities for producing the best 
of nearly everything, and if we utilize those opportuni- 
ties, recognizing the all-importance of Flavor in food, 
in its various stages from the field to the grill and the 

table, we can easily become, within a few decades, a 

452 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 453 

leading — perhaps even the leading— gastronomic na- 
tion. 

In the present chapter and the following one I pur- 
pose to dwell on some of the delicacies for the enjoy- 
ment of which at their best Europeans must come to 
America. 

SWEET CORN AND CORN BREAD. 

Probably the most characteristically American thing 
a summer visitor from Europe will see in our dining- 
rooms is the eating of green corn off the cob. To be 
sure, he might see the same thing in visiting the Hin- 
doos or South Africans; but they are imitators, we the 
originators of this delectable habit. 

In saying "we" I mean Americans in the broadest 
sense of the word, including the red Indians. It was 
they who first cultivated corn, in the central part of our 
hemisphere. From there it came north, and Columbus 
took it to Europe, whence it reached the other conti- 
nents. They call it maize in Europe, mealies in South 
Africa. In England "corn" means wheat, in Scotland 
oats, those being their principal crops respectively. In 
America the main crop still is, as it was twenty centuries 
ago, Indian corn, which therefore is of all things edible 
the most thoroughly American. Three cheers for corn ! 

In Italy, two-thirds of the rural population subsist 
mainly on corn, which is, however, eaten nearly always 
as polenta (mush), alone or with cheese, fish, or meat; 



454 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

whereas we have on our tables an almost endless variety 
of corn and corn products. 

The red man set the example. He ate green corn. 
He made a mush of ripe corn, pounding it, either 
parched or unparched, into a coarse meal. He mixed it 
diversely with pumpkins, nuts, berries, and other foods. 
Succotash is an Indian name which we borrowed from 
him, together with the dish it denotes — beans and un- 
ripe corn cooked together. The site of Montreal was 
once an Indian cornfield. In the "dreadful winter" of 
1620-21 the colonists in Plymouth bought "eight hogs- 
heads of corne and beanes" from the Indians, who 
taught them "bothe ye manner how to set it and after 
how to dress and tend it." 

Yet the most imaginative Indian could never have 
dreamt of how amazingly their successors on the soil 
would multiply the uses of corn, for the table and for 
countless industrial uses. We now have cook books 
concerned solely with corn foods. 

Mark Twain's appetizing list of the American dishes 
he missed in Europe, to which reference was made in 
the first chapter of this book, includes five made of corn : 
pone, hoe-cake, green corn on the ear, green corn cut 
from the ear and served with butter and pepper, and 
hominy. Among those he surely would have men- 
tioned also, had he happened to recall their merits at 
the moment, are samp, gruel, hulled corn, or lye hom- 
iny, Indian pudding, hasty pudding, pop-corn, succo- 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 455 

tash, Boston brown bread, griddle cakes, johnnycake, 
mock oysters, cream of corn, Kentucky corn dodgers, 
and cornmeal gems. 

Welcome as all these specialties and many others are 
on American tables — fried mush and hominy are partic- 
ularly to be commended to those who know not how 
tasty they are for breakfast, or as a dinner course, occa- 
sionally, in place of the everlasting potatoes — none of 
them — not even genuine pone — is quite so luscious as 
green corn. 

It may not be "elegant" to eat sweet corn off the cob, 
but that is the only way to get its full Flavor. There is 
delicious fragrance in the juicy cob, too, and in the 
bosom of your family it is permissible (and decidedly 
advisable) to suck it. Sugar cane and oranges are not 
the only things that are best when sucked. 

American horticultural ingenuity has achieved won- 
ders in developing varieties of sweet corn with new 
refinements of Flavor. A few years ago C. D. Keller, 
of Toledo, Ohio, originated a new kind which he called 
the "Howling Mob," which "peculiar but apt name," 
in the words of Mr. Burpee, "refers to the vociferous 
demand for the ears when Mr. Keller takes them to 
market." 

Great, indeed, is the demand in American markets, 
homes, and hotels for green corn, and much ingenuity 
has further been expended in rearing early and late 
varieties so as to make the season as long as possible. 



456 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Between the early MalakofF, from Siberia, and the late 
Country Gentleman, there are dozens of desirable 
varieties the characteristics of which are described in 
the catalogues of our seedsmen. The last-named has 
long been considered the sweetest of all kinds, but the 
new Golden Bantam is a formidable rival. Its color, 
which makes it look like ordinary field corn, is against 
it, but those who have once tasted it, sing its praises 
forevermore. 

It is related that the Rev. Sidney Smith's parishioners 
did not want him to visit America for fear that the 
allurements of canvasback duck might tempt him to 
remain. Sweet corn, also, might have alienated his 
patriotic affections. Covent Garden, to be sure, some- 
times offers so-called green corn, but England has too 
cool nights and not enough sunshine to develop the 
Flavor of this vegetable. 

Even in America, where it grows to perfection, pains 
must be taken if one wants to get that Flavor at its best. 
All who have lived in the country agree with Dr. 
Wiley's dictum that "there is only one way to eat 
Indian corn. That is to go out just before sun-up and 
harvest the ears, and have them boiled for early break- 
fast. To people in cities who have never eaten freshly 
harvested Indian corn, such an experience would be a 
revelation." 

Not only do corn cobs that are kept a day or two be- 
fore eating lose much of their precious fragrance, but, 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 457 

as the same eminent chemist informs us, "corn which is 
perfectly sweet and delicious at the moment of harvest, 
has been found to lose half of its sugar within twenty- 
four hours." 

Those who find sweet corn indigestible do not know 
how to eat it. If a sharp knife is pressed on each row 
of kernels the skin — which is the indigestible part — is 
cut and remains on the cob. 

While the demand for sweet corn is ever on the 
increase and fortunes are made by those who grow or 
handle the best — that is, the most agreeably flavored — 
sorts, the foods made of ripe dried corn are not eaten 
so generally as they ought to be, at least in the Northern 
States. 

It is desirable that everybody should know the in- 
teresting reason for the fact, known to all, that the 
South is more addicted than the North to the eating 
of dishes made of corn. 

That reason is very simple* corn bread in the 
South is made of meal which has more Flavor than the 
meal sold in the Northern States, and is therefore more 
appetizing and wholesome. 

Why is its Flavor better"? Because it is made of 
ground corn from which only the indigestible hulls 
have been removed by bolting, whereas in the making 
of meal for Northern markets, the millers remove also 
the germ which contains the fat and most of the Flavor 
of corn, besides its most important mineral contents. 



458 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

They have contrived a diabolical machine known as 
the "degerminator" for the special purpose of bolting 
out the germs, that is, the very heart and soul, of the 
corn. 

If I add that, in the words of Dr. Charles D. Woods, 
Director of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Sta- 
tion "from the manufacturer's standpoint the removal 
of the germ does not represent a loss, as it is used for 
the manufacture of gluten feeds — so important for 
live stock — and corn oil, which has many industrial 
uses and is used to some extent as a salad oil and 
as a culinary fat" — the reader will begin to suspect one 
reason why the millers market cornmeal from which 
its most valuable constituent has been removed. 

But there is another reason for this dastardly crime 
and that is that "the germ lowers the keeping quality 
of the meal because its abundant fat easily becomes 
rancid." 

In other words cornmeal made for sale in the North 
is denatured deliberately in order that the miller and 
the grocer may not run the risk of having a few sacks 
of it spoil on their hands occasionally! The consumer 
is not considered at all. 

Ungastronomic America has meekly submitted to 
this outrage, largely because the facts of the case are 
not generally known. Gastronomic Americans, whose 
numbers are increasing rapidly, will insist on their 
rights, refusing to buy cornmeal from which most of 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 459 

the Flavor has been eliminated, and the North will in 
time eat as much corn bread as the South. 

Personally, I agree with those who think' it even 
more tasty than wheat bread. The only advantage 
wheat has is that, with yeast or baking powder, it can 
be made into a lighter and more porous loaf; but this 
advantage,can be neutralized by baking the corn bread 
in thin cakes ; and corn bread thus made is far more di- 
gestible than loaves of wheat bread as ordinarily made 
in America. A good quality of it is also much more 
easily and more quickly made at home. Soldiers and 
campers prefer it, partly for this reason. "It has been 
said," writes Dr. Woods, "that johnny cake is a corrup- 
tion of journey cake, and that corn bread was so called 
because it could be so easily prepared on the road." l 

GRIDDLE CAKES AND MAPLE SYRUP. 

Our breakfasts, more than other meals, are made de- 
lectable by diverse corn dishes. Corn flakes, properly 
made are more flavorful than any others, and of all the 
varieties of griddle cakes, so dear to the American 
palate, none quite equals those made of corn. If these 
are at present seen less frequently on bills of fare than 
are wheat, rice, or buckwheat cakes, it is because of 
the way in which cornmeal is usually deprived of 
what most appeals to the palate. 

1 "Food Value of Corn and Corn Products." Farmers' Bulletin No. 
298, Washington, 1907. 



460 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Griddle cakes made of wheat are widely known as 
flannel cakes. I have never eaten any woolen stuff, 
but I imagine it might taste a good deal like the aver- 
age "flannel" cake, though it would be much lighter. 
The French and German pancakes are far superior to 
our wheat cakes; but even to these I prefer the Ameri- 
can corn griddle cakes, for which the whites of egg have 
been beaten stiff and added gradually; and I bask in 
the proud consciousness that my preference is thor- 
oughly patriotic. 

The liking for buckwheat cakes is to me a mystery 
and always has been, although as a boy I used to eat 
them with rich sausage gravy, which made them palata- 
ble. Buckwheat cakes are not eaten so much as they 
used to be, so maybe I am not alone in disliking them. 
For the gratification of those who do like them I quote 
from the New York "Sun" a characteristically Ameri- 
can communication from "Middle Aged" : 

I saw in a store window to-day a sign "New Buckwheat," so 
I know people still eat buckwheat; but I doubt if it is as much 
eaten as it was in years back, say in the days when I was a 
youngster. 

We always had buckwheat cakes for breakfast. Mother, 
sometimes father, used to stir the batter the night before in a 
curious tall, round, straight sided, brown earthenware pot with 
a handle on it, which was sacredly reserved for that purpose. I 
have never seen anywhere at any time another pot just like that 
one ; and then it was set in just the right spot by the kitchen 
stove, for the batter to rise through the night. 

In the morning they thinned this batter out just a little with 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 461 

water and then they fried the cakes; in our house on a long 
double griddle that covered two stove holes and on which you 
could cook two or three cakes at a time. 

Every morning in winter we had those buckwheat cakes, light 
as a feather, and with them we always had sausages or pork 
chops; and such sausages and pork chops I have never seen since. 
Sausages, not as you see them nowadays as big around as a cigar 
and filled with some sort of pasty material, but big sausages 
stuffed with meat chopped coarse and that burst open when 
you fried them as if anxious to reveal to you their delightful, 
savory richness — I hope it is given to you to be able to recall 
such sausages; and pork chops from pigs country raised on nearby 
farms, a delight to the taste and always tender. 

Whichever we had that morning, whether sausages or pork 
chops, we ate the sausage or the pork chop gravy on the cakes. 
Really the recollection moves me. My smiling mother — 
Heaven bless her! — never stinted me on the cakes; she gave me 
all I could eat. My father when I asked him for another sau- 
sage would sometimes ask me good-naturedly if I did n't think 
I had had enough ; but he always handed over the sausage. And 
now, if you won't think I ami quite a pig, I would like to say 
that I used to eat the last plate not with gravy but with butter 
and molasses on them ; later we came to have syrup. And this 
sort of breakfast never did me any harm. There is a popular 
delusion that the ostrich has the hardiest of all stomachs, but 
really his would not for a moment bear comparison with that 
of the growing, outdoors boy. 

The serving of sausages and pork chops with griddle 
cakes is not so customary as it used to be; usually the 
cakes, whether wheat, buckwheat, rice, or corn, are 
now eaten with some kind of syrup. 

The syrup served with our griddle cakes is as char- 
acteristically American as the cakes themselves, or as 



462 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

the endless variety of cereal breakfast foods, one or 
the other of which nearly every American eats daily, 
with cream and sugar, and which foreigners know 
nothing about. 1 

Strictly speaking, a syrup is "the direct product of 
the evaporation of the juice of a sugar-yielding plant 
or tree without the removal of any of the sugar," 
whereas molasses is "the saccharine product which is 
separated from sugar in the process of manufacture." 
Commercial "syrup" is usually a mixture of syrup, 
molasses (of which there are many grades) and other 
things. Much of it is injurious to health, and house- 
wives who wish to see nothing unwholesome on their 
breakfast tables should read what Dr. Wiley has to 
say on this subject, on pp. 472-482 of his "Foods and 
Their Adulteration." 

The sap of sugar cane and sorghum is usually good 
and safe, besides being American. Even more so is 
the sap of the maple. 

George Washington and Bret Harte were not more 
thoroughly and exclusively American than is the Acer 
saccharinum, or sugar maple tree. Europe nor any 
other continent has aught to match it. The sugar 
made from its sap is one of the delicacies discovered 
by the American Indian. The early white settlers 

1 "Cereal Breakfast Foods" is the title of Farmers' Bulletin No. 249, 
which tells about their composition, variety, digestibility, cost, adultera- 
tion, etc American magazines thrive on the advertisements of break- 
fast cereals. 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 463 

learned from him how to make it, and for many years 
it was the only sugar they had. It was "dark and 
ill-tasting" compared with the best modern product. 

In their appeal to the sense of taste all sweet syrups 
are alike. It is their fragrance, their Flavor, that 
makes us prefer some kinds to others. The Flavor of 
maple syrup has been much improved, and is still being 
improved, by perfecting the methods of tapping the 
tree, gathering the sap, boiling it, and storing the sweet 
product. 

Uncle Sam has not neglected this important branch 
of national gastronomic industry. His chemists have 
been at work to ascertain the causes of the souring of 
the sap under certain conditions, and to explain why 
the later runs do. not have so pleasant a Flavor as the 
earlier ones. They have found it in the action of 
micro-organisms. 

While I was writing this chapter I received from 
Washington Farmers' Bulletin 516, a brochure of 46 
pages in which the making of maple syrup and sugar 
is fully discussed, with detailed directions for securing 
the best-flavored product. 1 As in the making of but- 
ter, many things have to be done and many avoided 
to get the best results, but they are worth the trouble. 

The demand for genuine maple sugar is great, and 
would be much greater still if adulteration were not so 

1 "The Production of Maple Syrup and Sugar." By A. Hugh Bryan, 
Chief Sugar Laboratory, Bureau of Chemistry, and William F. Hub- 
bard, Forest Assistant, Forest Service, 1912. 



464 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

much practised. In 1910, according to the U. S. 
Census Reports, the maple syrup production of the 
country was 4,106,418 gallons, and in addition to this 
there were made over 14,000,000 pounds of maple 
sugar. 

In that year Ohio led all the States in the produc- 
tion of maple syrup, followed by New York, Vermont, 
Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and New 
Hampshire. In many other States it can be made in 
paying quantities. Farmers are advised to attend to 
this industry as a source of extra income. In the Bul- 
letin just referred to, attention is called to two im- 
portant economic considerations: "The season of pro- 
duction comes at a time of the year when little or no 
other work can be done on the farm, thus allowing 
the aid of the family and farm help for the boiling and 
manufacture. Moreover, since the sugar bushes as 
a general rule are situated on hilly country that would 
not be suitable for any other crop, these two items 
could hardly be placed at a high value in a table of 
costs." 

Every farmer who lives in a State and region where 
the sugar maple prospers should secure Bulletin 516 
through his representative in Washington. By attend- 
ing strictly to the matter of delicate Flavor, not only 
can the industry be enormously increased at home but 
foreign markets can easily be won. Adulteration must, 
however, be severely curbed. Under present condi- 






/"?„ 






iC-- 






\< 'J,*"*" 



'7 ;^ f ? : . 



- «*■'.■:'.■. ?£■-■■ 




The sugar bush. 



466 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

tions American epicures do not put their faith in gro- 
cers but get their annual supplies early every year 
direct from the producer. It is best when freshly 
made, and unless put in cans and sealed while still hot 
it gradually loses its Flavor. Syrup made of dissolved 
maple sugar is often used, but it is less delicately 
flavored than that which is made at once from the sap. 
Many a time have I thanked Heaven that I was 
brought up in the country. How I pity those persons 
who, in the days of their youth, had no chance to 
kneel before an Acer saccharinum, as I did in my Mis- 
souri days (only a few miles from Mark Twain's birth- 
place, by the way) and drink in the nectar as it 
trickled through the spout into my mouth. It was 
more glorious even than it was some years later to 
suck fresh Oregon cider from a barrel through a straw. 

APPLE PIE AND CRANBERRIES. 

Is pie as thoroughly American as maple syrup, grid- 
dle cakes, and corn bread? 

An American is likely to answer " Yes," while an 
Englishman might say "No." 

In the English "Who's Who" the "recreations" of 
most of the eminent men and women of the time in 
Europe and America are referred to. Had Theophile 
Gautier lived to be included in that volume, he would 
have probably named among his favorite recreations 
"reading the dictionary," to which he is said to have 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 467 

been much addicted. I could never quite see the fun 
of this diversion till I made the acquaintance of Mur- 
ray's wonderful Oxford dictionary, which traces the 
meaning and history of every word back through the 
centuries. 

Nothing, surely, could be more interesting, for in- 
stance, than to read in this work that the first refer- 
ence to apple pie, so far as known, was as far back as 
1590, when Greene, in his "Arcadia," wrote the line: 
"Thy breath is like the steame of apple-pyes" — thus 
proving himself, as I may add, an epicure as well as a 
poet and a lover. 

On another page we read : "The pie appears to have 
been at first of meat or fish; doubtful or undefined 
uses appear in 16th century; fruit 'pies (also called, 
especially in the north of England and Ireland, in Scot- 
land, and often in the United States, tarts) appear 
before 1600, the earliest being Apple-Pie." 

Were these apple pyes the same as the American 
apple pie of our day? I doubt it. If they had been, 
the Britons of our time certainly would make the same 
kind, but they don't. Their substitute for our fruit 
pie is the tart, which has only one crust and is other- 
wise different. 

Even if it could be proved that we got our fruit 
pie from England, shape, contents, and all, I still 
would claim it as a national American dish — Ameri- 
can by right of conquest, improvement, and country- 



468 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

wide use. Millions of American families eat it daily, 
at lunch or at dinner. The poet Emerson even ate it 
at breakfast, and when a guest refused it, he was sur- 
prised and exclaimed: "What is pie for?" 

You can make a fruit pie in the American style in 
Great Britain or on the Continent, but you cannot 
duplicate its excellence, for the simple reason that 
European fruit is rarely as tasty as American fruit. 

It must be admitted that in the making of a light, 
digestible crust most American cooks could learn a 
lesson from foreign pastry cooks, who would advise 
them, among other things, to partly bake the lower 
crust or glaze it with white of egg before the fruit is put 
in. But, after all, the Flavor of the fruit is the all- 
important thing, and in that the American pie is 
supreme. 

The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, in his eloquent ser- 
mon on apple pie, exclaimed: "But, oh! be careful of 
the paste! Let it be not like putty, nor rush to the 
other extreme and make it so flaky that one holds his 
breath while eating, for fear of blowing it away. Let 
it not be plain as bread, yet not rich like cake." 

Has ever an English divine paid such attention to 
pie? No; the apple pie is ours, as much as our 
flag. 

But alack and alas, the apple pie is often insulted 
and maltreated in its own bailiwick by being over- 
seasoned. Beecher called attention to the fact that 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 469 

"it will accept almost every flavor of every spice," and 
he mentioned nutmeg, cinnamon, and lemon as among 
those which it is permissible to use. 

"Permissible," yes, but most inadvisable. You 
may say it is a matter of taste, and that you have a 
right to put as much nutmeg, cinnamon, or lemon ex- 
tract into your pie or your apple sauce as you please. 
If you make it for yourself and your family, yes; but 
not if you make it for a restaurant. The spices named 
are penetrating and monopolistic; even in small quanti- 
ties they obliterate the natural Flavor of the apple, or 
at least modify it in a way obnoxious to those true 
epicures who like their fruit dishes au naturel, just as 
they like prime cuts of butcher's meats without ob- 
trusive sauces, and sausage mild-flavored, without the 
screaming sage or too much pepper. 

Nutmeg is the spice with which our apple pie is most 
frequently alloyed. An alloy is defined as "anything 
that reduces purity or excellence." If you put nut- 
meg into apple pie or sauce, you make it taste always 
the same, be it made of European or American fruit 
or of this or that variety of apples. Now, to an epi- 
cure the best thing about apple pie or sauce is that 
when served without spice it retains the peculiar Flavor 
of the kind of apple it is made from. 

To go to your grocer and buy "cooking apples" is 
almost as bad as to ask for "cooking butter." The 
best butter and the best apples should always be used 



47Q FOOD AND FLAVOR 

in the kitchen — if you can afford to buy them. If you 
cannot, eat oatmeal and prunes. 

To those who have refined palates it makes a world 
of difference whether their apple pie and sauce are 
made of "cooking apples" or of Gravensteins, Red 
Astrachans, Newtown Pippins, or Spitzenbergs. Each 
variety — and dozens of others might be named — has 
its own special charm ; and the same is true of pies and 
sauces made of other fruits. 

In the baking of pumpkin pie, which, next to that 
made of apples, is perhaps the most characteristically 
American pie, mace (which is derived from the cover- 
ing of the nutmeg seed) or some other spice, is not only 
permissible but commendable; while mince pie, which 
we borrowed from the English but eat probably oftener 
than they do, is such a jumble of condiments — sugar, 
raisins, currants, almonds, apples, lemon and orange 
juice and peel, molasses, suet, quince jelly, and other 
things ad libitum — that it makes little difference what 
you add in the way of mace, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, 
or other spices within reason. Time was when caraway 
seeds, saffron, rosewater, ambergris, and other impos- 
sible things were added. As made now, mince pie is 
as agreeable to most palates as it is indigestible. I am 
told it can be made so as to be easily digestible, but I 
"hae ma doots." 

Some years ago mince pie was dignified by being 
made the subject of a political squabble in Washing- 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 471 

ton. Dr. Wiley wanted a definition of "normal 
mincemeat," and thirty manufacturers were summoned 
to testify. Evidently some of these manufacturers 
were making mincemeat without the chopped meat 
which is an essential ingredient of the best home-made 
article, for they engaged a trained lexicographer, Prof. 
C. D. Childs, of the University of Pennsylvania, to 
prepare a treatise on mince pie, in which it was demon- 
strated that mincemeat does not necessarily contain 
meat. 

The definition in Murray's Oxford Dictionary is "a 
mixture made of currants, raisins, sugar, suet, apples, 
almonds, candied peel, etc., and sometimes meat 
chopped small; used in mince pies"; which shows that 
in England, also, meat is not always an ingredient. It 
is only fair to consumers, however, that the law should 
compel the manufacturers to print the ingredients in 
each case on the label. Mince pie with meat is cer- 
tainly better than mince pie without. 

Perhaps I erred in saying that pumpkin pie is, next 
to apple pie, the most characteristic American pastry 
dish. It certainly is not more so than cranberry pie. 

The cranberry is not exclusively American, like 
maple syrup, terrapin, and canvasback duck, for it 
grows in some parts of Europe; but it remained for 
American epicures to discover its rare gastronomic 
merits. It took genius to do this, for in its natural 
wild state the berry is excessively astringent and acid. 



472 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

But it had a Flavor that made an irresistible appeal 
and invited further cultivation. Particularly agreea- 
able is the Oxycoccus erythrocarpus, a variety which 
grows in the mountains of Virginia and Georgia. The 
European berries, though they used to be abundant in 
England, were neglected because of their inferior 
Flavor, and England now imports cranberries in large 
quantities from the United States, as do France, Italy, 
and Germany, chiefly for tarts. 

Cape Cod is now the chief camping ground of the 
cranberry. It has been doubled in size by cultivation, 
and its Flavor improved by enriching and draining the 
soil, and in other ways. The annual production is 
about three million bushels. Thanks to the growing 
demand for them, bog lands which were worth $5 an 
acre now sell at $300 to $700 per acre. 

The darker the berry the richer the flavor. Once 
upon a time I wrote a book on Romantic Love and Per- 
sonal Beauty in which I tried to prove that brunettes 
are more beautiful than blondes. I am not sure that 
I succeeded — there are certainly some ravishing excep- 
tions! — but in the matter of foods there can be no 
doubt that as a rule the dark are finer than the light 
colored. 

Does not Boston, the center of American culture, 
give its name to brown bread, and does not Boston pre- 
fer dark eggs to the anemic white ones favored in New 
York 1 ? Does any one who has had the good sense to 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 473 

buy "rusty" oranges and grapefruit deny that they are 
sweeter and more fragrant than the light yellow ones'? 
Ask any epicure if he does not think the second joint 
of a fowl is more savory than the white meat. Bread 
which has a deep brown crust is more tasty than pale 
crumb. Crackers' toasted brown are more appetizing 
than crackers untoasted. English rusks, German zwie- 
back, Italian breadsticks, are they not all brunettes'? 
Do not all vegetables, fruits, and berries darken as 
they ripen and develop their flavor*? 

The darkest cranberries therefore are the ones you 
want to buy. And be sure that your cook in preparing 
cranberry sauce or jelly presses the pulp through a 
sieve to remove the indigestible skins. It is only when 
they are cooked whole and candied with an equal 
weight of sugar that the skins may be left on them. 

TURKEYS, GUINEA FOWL, AND GAME. 

Cranberry sauce is in America associated inseparably 
with turkey, and the turkey is another of our gastro- 
nomic specialties. 

Benjamin Franklin argued that the turkey — which 
is surely a finer bird than the eagle, less vicious, and 
infinitely more useful — should have been adopted as 
the emblem of the United States, for it is a truly in- 
digenous and national bird. In Franklin's day "the 
log cabin of the pioneer was surrounded by these birds, 
saluting each other in the early morning from the tree- 
tops." 



474 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Those were gala times for hunters and epicures, 
when wild turkeys used to fly in flocks of hundreds ! 

They owe their name to the notion, once current, 
that they came to Europe from Asia. But it is now 
established beyond doubt that they are aboriginal 
Americans. It did not take the Spaniards long to 
find out their value, for, little more than a quarter of 
a century after Columbus discovered this Continent, 
they took some of the birds across the sea to their own 
country and thence the turkey soon made its way to 
other parts of Europe. Records show that in Eng- 
land, in 1541, the turkey was enumerated among the 
dainties, while in 1573 it had become the customary 
fare of the farmer. 

"The turkey is beyond doubt one of the finest pres- 
ents the New World has made the Old," wrote the 
best-known of French epicures, Brillat-Savarin; and in 
his "Physiologie du Gout" he has a chapter in which he 
proudly relates how he shot one of these birds. It 
was in 1794; he was visiting a friend at Hartford, 
Connecticut, who took him out hunting one day, after 
having treated him on the previous evening to a dinner 
one course of which consisted of the entirely American 
corned beef, which the eminent epicure found "splen- 
did." 

They shot some fat tender partridges and seven gray 
squirrels, "which are highly esteemed in this coun- 
try" ; then he had his chance at the turkey, 




BRILLAT-SAVARIN 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 475 

bagged it, took it back to Hartford and had it cooked 
for some guests who kept exclaiming: "Very good! 
Exceedingly good ! Oh, dear sir, what a glorious bit." 

Though he had a high opinion of his own judgment 
in matters gastronomic, Brillat-Savarin was much 
pleased when a friend of his, M. Bose, who lived in Car- 
olina, contributed to the "Annates d' Agriculture" of 
Feb. 28, 1821, an article which confirmed his own judg- 
ment as to the superiority of the American turkey to the 
bird as reared in France, attributing this superiority to 
the fact that the American turkey roamed the woods 
freely and thus gained a finer Flavor than the domesti- 
cated bird has. 

Unfortunately, it took American poultry raisers sev- 
eral generations to realize the full significance of this 
fact. All was well so long as there were plenty of wild 
turkeys, the flesh of which was of perfect savor, 
especially during the autumn, when they lived largely 
on pecan nuts. All was well, too, so long as the farms 
were few and scattered, and there was interbreeding of 
wild and domesticated birds. Rut the time came when 
the turkeys degenerated, owing to excessive inbreeding 
and too close confinement. It is only within a few 
years that farmers have begun to heed the advice that 
"it is better to send a thousand mites for a new male 
than to risk the chances of inbreeding," and to restore 
to the turkey his forest freedom. 

"While our present-day turkeys are classed as c do- 



476 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

mestic fowls.' they are rather semi-domestic when 
compared with other poultry," writes T. F. Mc- 
Grew. 1 

It is this semi-game quality of the best turkeys that 
make them so dear to the epicure. Brillat-Savarin's 
verdict is that the turkey, "though not the most tender, 
is the most tasty of all the farm fowls," — and few will 
disagree with him. 

For the benefit of the rapidly growing number of 
farmers who increase their income by raising turkeys, 
I will cite the words of an expert which sum up the 
philosophy of the subject: 

The flavor of all turkeys raised by careful farmers within 
five or six years is much finer than in the run down stock raised 
by old fogy farmers. The improvement in flavor has also 
been accompanied by an increase in size and tenderness. This 
is due to the admixture of the strain from wild turkeys from 
Canada and the South and the Southwest and to the modern 
system of keeping the birds out of doors as much as possible 
and giving them opportunities for getting plenty of mast and 
the seeds of wild and cultivated plants and pure water from 
brooks and streams kept clear from noxious plants and sewage. 

Birds thus reared bring fancy prices — a point to 
which I shall recur in the next chapter under "Feeding 
Flavor Into Food." 

It has been customary for a long time for patriotic 
persons to send to the President of the United States 

1 "Turkeys: Their Standard Varieties and Management." Farmers' 
Bulletin, No. 200. 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 477 

choice turkeys for the Thanksgiving and Christmas din- 
ners. Woodrow Wilson received one in December, 
1912, from Kentucky which weighed forty- three 
pounds and had been nurtured "as befits a King Gob- 
bler," on sweet chestnuts, with celery and pepper to 
improve its Flavor. 

The Guinea fowl is another bird which must roam 
wild to do well, and which consequently has a gamy 
Flavor, like the semi-domestic turkey. Though not an 
aboriginal American, it has become acclimated. It is 
an African cousin of the turkey. 

In his useful treatise on "The Guinea Fowl and Its 
Use as Food" (Farmers' Bulletin No. 234), Dr. Lang- 
worthy states that in Jamaica and some other regions 
the Guinea birds "have gone back to their wild state 
and are hunted in their season as game birds. They are 
also well known as game birds in England, where large 
flocks are sometimes kept in game preserves." 

On the continent they are more domesticated and are 
raised in large numbers for the markets of France, 
Austria, and Germany. What we want in our markets, 
however, is not the domesticated Guinea fowl so much 
as the half-wild. We have plenty of other good barn- 
yard birds, including the savory squab, but we are woe- 
fully short of game, and the Guinea fowl, more than 
the turkey, comes to the rescue. While the mature bird 
has its own gamy Flavor, the chicks resemble young 
quail, and the eggs are a good deal like the highly 



478 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

valued plover eggs. Even the domesticated birds re- 
tain a surprising number of their wild traits and on this 
bird, therefore, we may have to depend largely for our 
game of the future. 

To the deplorable condition of our present game mar- 
ket I referred briefly in the chapter on Germany, where 
they do things so much better. In New York, quail 
(so abundant until a few years ago) are now imported 
from far-away Egypt, and grouse from Scotland, while 
prices have gone up like rockets. 

In Louisiana alone it was computed that over 
4,265,000 game birds were killed in the season 1909- 
1910. Mrs. Russell Sage's generous gift of $150,000 
secured Marsh Island as a refuge for the wild fowl. 
Others have helped the cause, and the Government's 
efforts are thus summed up in Circular No. 87 of the 
Bureau of Biological Survey: 

For purposes of administration the bird reservations are 
grouped in six districts: (1) The Gulf district, including 10 
reservations in Florida, 4 in Louisiana, and I in Porto Rico; 
(2) the Lake district, including 2 in Michigan, 2 in North 
Dakota, and 1 in Wisconsin; (3) the Mountain district, in- 
cluding 12 in the Rocky Mountain States, South Dakota, and 
Nebraska; (4) the Pacific district, including 3 in California, 
4 in Oregon, and 8 in Washington; (5) the Alaska district, 
including 8 reservations; and (6) the Hawaiian district, in- 
cluding 1 reservation. Wardens are stationed on the more im- 
portant reservations and the National Association of Audubon 
Societies . . . cooperates actively with the Department of 
Agriculture in protecting the birds. 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 479 

There is a special periodical, the "Gamebreeders' 
Magazine," devoted to the task of replenishing our stock 
of wild animals, which was for so many generations one 
of the chief assets of Gastronomic America. There 
are also Breeders' Associations which are planning to 
make American game, feathered and unfeathered, 
abundant once more. No one can ever bring back the 
large flocks of wild turkeys, the pigeons that darkened 
the skies, the herds of countless buffaloes; but we 
can at least bring back in part our former abun- 
dance of some kinds of game by following European 
methods. 

The Government is also ready to help by supplying, 
without charge, birds to be liberated and allowed to 
multiply in various places. Our native birds are, of 
course, best adapted for this purpose, but what can be 
done with imported birds is shown in Farmers' Bulletin 
No. 390, in which Henry Oldys of the Biological Sur- 
vey tells the interesting story of how the Chinese and 
English pheasants have been made to feel at home in 
Oregon and in other States, where they have become 
permanent additions to the game list. 

"Deer Farming in the United States" is another val- 
uable Farmers' Bulletin (No. 330), by D. E. Lantz. 
Its object is thus summed up: 

As a result of the growing scarcity of game animals in this 
country the supply of venison is wholly inadequate to the de- 
mand, and the time seems opportune for developing the indus- 



480 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

try of deer farming, which may be made profitable alike to 
the State and the individuals engaged therein. The raising 
of venison for market is as legitimate a business as the growing 
of beef and mutton, and State laws, when prohibitory, as 
many of them are, should be so modified as to encourage the 
industry. Furthermore, deer and elk may be raised to ad- 
vantage in forests and on rough, brushy ground unfitted for 
either agriculture or stock raising, thus utilizing for profit 
much land that is now waste. An added advantage is that 
the business is well adapted to landowners of small means. 

Mr. Lantz is convinced that, with favorable legisla- 
tion, "this excellent and nutritious meat, instead of be- 
ing denied to 99 per cent, of the population of the 
country, may become as common and as cheap in our 
markets as mutton." 

LOBSTERS, SCALLOPS, CRABS, AND FISHES. 

Every inch an American is the Homarus Americanus. 
There are not so many inches of him as there used to be, 
but that makes him none the less precious. The Pil- 
grim lobsters "five or six feet long," ascribed to New 
York Bay in the days of Olaus Magnus, are now classed 
as a myth, but four-foot lobsters (measured from the tip 
of the claws to the end of the tail) have been caught. 
Such a giant weighs about thirty- four pounds. 

The American lobster was originally found only on 
the eastern coast of North America. These lobster 
grounds some seven thousand miles, including the 
curves of the shore, were the finest the world has ever 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 481 

seen. In Canada alone a hundred million lobsters 
have been captured in a year. 

In one respect the lobster differs strangely from other 
creatures of sea and land. Like the eel, he is a scav- 
enger of the deep, but while the eel is often offensive to 
the taste because of this feeding habit, the lobster is 
always sweet. "Nothing could be more offensive to 
the human nostril," writes Dr. Francis Hobart Herrick, 1 
than the netted balls of slack-salted, semi-decomposing 
herring, which are commonly used as bait on the coast 
and islands of Maine, but by the wonderful chemical 
processes which are continually going on in the labora- 
tory of its body, the lobster is able to transmute such 
products of organic decay into the most delicate and 
palatable flesh." 

Were it not for this alchemistic marvel the most 
plutocratic restaurants in the United States, especially 
those which cater to the persons who sup after the thea- 
ter, would never have become known as Lobster Pal- 
aces. The lobster served in these places, plain boiled, 
broiled, a la Newburg, and in other ways, is one of 
those characteristic American foods which foreign epi- 
cures not only envy but enjoy, though they cannot have 
our crustaceans as fresh as we do. 

It has been well said that "the story of the lobster 
in its progress from the fisherman's pots on the Maine 

1 "In his beautifully illustrated and valuable "Natural History of the 
American Lobster." From Bulletin of the Bureau of Fisheries, 1909. 



482 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

coast to the grills and silver chafing-dishes on Broadway 
is the whole story in miniature of the high cost of living 
under an artificial economic condition." The lobster- 
man gets a little over ten cents a pound. "The whole- 
saler doubles the price, the retailer trebles it, and in the 
end the restaurant-keeper marks it up 1,000 per cent, 
above the first cost, charging patrons $1.50 a portion 
for what the lobsterman was paid a tenth of that sum." 

To this extortion I, for one, refuse to submit. In the 
market you can buy a lobster for one quarter to one- 
third the price charged in most restaurants. You can 
make sure he is alive — never buy a dead lobster, though 
they say he is safe to eat if his tail is curled and springs 
back when pulled. To kill him by plunging him in 
boiling water may seem cruel, but is no more so than 
other ways, and is certainly infinitely less so than the 
usual way — which should be forbidden— of letting 
him perish slowly in a barrel, or on ice. 

Canned lobster is a food a wise man avoids, though, 
to be sure, he runs perhaps no greater risk in eating 
it than in consuming many other things, tinned or un- 
tinned. Millions of dollars' worth of canned lobsters, 
crabs, and salmon are eaten every year. 

A new American delicacy hails from Canada : lobster 
rarebit, a compound of certain parts of the lobster which 
had previously been thrown away as waste by the can- 
ners. The annual output of canned lobster by the 
Eastern Provinces of Canada now amounts to about 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 483 

ten million cans, worth about $3,000,000. Lobster 
rarebit, which is said to be a highly appetizing delicacy, 
easily digested and nourishing may, it is believed, in 
time equal the money value of canned lobsters. Con- 
sul Frank Deedmeyer, of Charlottetown, gave these 
details at the time when lobster rarebit was first intro- 
duced : 

Canned lobster, as known to the trade, consists of the meat 
taken from the claws and the tail. The whole of the body 
proper is now rejected by the packers, and it has heretofore 
been used in the maritime Provinces of Canada as a fertilizer. 
In the rejected portion is found a crescent-shaped meaty layer 
to which the tail is attached and the liver. Lobster rarebit is 
a compound of this meaty layer, of the liver, and of the roe, 
to which some spice is added. The first named of the com- 
ponents used is the fattest part of the crustacean ; the liver, 
glandular, is large and retains a high percentage of bile. The 
number of eggs found in a lobster is estimated from 5,000 to 
40,000, according to size. The three ingredients are mixed 
in these proportions: Six-tenths meat, three-tenths liver, and 
one-tenth roe. 

While the efforts to propagate the Atlantic lobster 
have met with scant success on the Pacific Coast there 
are other marine delicacies to console those who dwell 
on the shore from Southern California to Washington 
and British Columbia; among them the abalone of Cat- 
alina, which makes delicious soup, the razor clam and 
monster specimens of other clams in Washington 
waters, oysters, huge crabs, and above all, crawfish. 

In Oregon, the crawfish abounds in creeks and rivers, 



AUL POTATOES SERVED 
WILL BE CHARGED FOR 



MONDAY. JANUARY 6, I9»3 
SOUPS 



Meek turtle .......30 

Chicken, Creole . .25 

Scotch broth . 25 

Cream of asparagus ,.25 



Consomme, duchesse. ..25 

Paysanne 25 

Tomato . 25 

Mutton 25 



Consomme, hot or Cold 25 

" cup ...15 

Oyster , 23 

Clam chowder ,2ft 



FISH READY 
Boiled live codfish, oyster sauce .. 



.40 



Lynnhavens ._.*.. .„___.. 30 

Blue Points 
Buzzards Bays 
Cotuits 

On the shell 25 

Oyster cocktail 30 



LUtle-Neck clams stewed.. 30 

*' "steamed 35 

" clam cocktail.. 30 



OYSTERS 

Fried In batter 50 

Pan roast 40 

Roast in shell .. 40 

Escaloped In shell .40 

Stewed 36 

Fried ... .... 40 

CLAMS 

Little-Neck clams roasted .40 

" fried 1 40 

"• on shell .. 25 

SHELL FISH 



Box stew -.40 

Astor House oyster flip .40 

Au gratin 50 

Pickled 30 

Steamed 40 

Broiled. 40 



Clam broth 25 

Clam fritters ..* 40 

Soft shell clams, steamed. .35 



Plain lobster .qo Deviled lobster ^5 Broiled lobster 1 00 

Lobster croquettes 75 Lobster. a la Newburg 1 00 Baked lobster, stuffed 75 

CHICKEN PATTY 40 OYSTER PATTY 35 

FRIED SCALLOPS ...50 WITH BACON 60 

PEEP SEA SCALLOPS WITH BACON .50 

ENTREES 

Beef a la mode, boorgeohe , . ..40 

Fricassee of veal with mushrooms 50 

Whole spring chicken en casserole, asparagus tips. I 50 

Irish stew with vegetables 40 

Loin ot fresh pork, apple sauce 50 

Lobster patties, Maryland . eiO 

Calf's head, vinaigrette ... . ..50 

Apple fritters, rum sauce... . . . ..30 



ROAST 



Beel - 50 

Leg of mutton --40 

Roast beef sandwich, hot 45 

Lamb, mint sauce „ 75 

Suckling pig, apple sauce ... .50 



Filet of beet.... 70 

Ham, Champagne sauce ...............50 

Turkey, cranberry sauce 65 

Philadelphia chicken, half ... 75 

Port, apple sauce. . _.__._.„_5o 



Corned beef and cabbage. 



BOILED 

.40 Mutton, caper sauce. 



VEGETABLES AND RELISHES 



Fried sweet potatoes 20 

Potatoes, boiled 10 

" baked 10 

•* mashed 10 

"' julienne 20 

" French fried 15 

Onions, boiled 15 

Spinach 20 

Macaroni, plain 15 

" au gratin 25 

" napolltaine 20 

" a la Moutgelas..30 
OHves 20 



New string beans .30 

Stewed tomatoes 15 

Beets 15 

Fried egg-plant 30 

Cold slaw 20 

Radishes . 10 

Celery 25 

French peas, naturel 30 

French string beans 30 

Succotash 20 

Mashed turnips .10 

Cabbage 15 

Cauliflower. 30 au gratin. 40 



French artichokes -.50 

Canned asparagus 30 

" Lima beans ...... 25 

" sweet corn .......20 

" green peas .25 

" string beans ..25 

Fouds d'artichauts farcis ..75 

Pin-money pickles .10 

Pickled onions 20 

Pickled English walnuts.. 25 

Chow chow 10 

Stuffed mangoes 15 

Chili sauce .....ic 

Chutney sauce .15 



Cigars Served In Sealed Envelopes with Price Marked Thereon 



TO ORDER 



Small steak 60 

Sirloin steak » 10 

Extra sirloin steak 2 00 

Small tenderloin steak 60 

Porterhouse steak 1 50 

Squab guinea-hen . 1 75 

half 90 



English mutton chop . ...... 5° 

Mutton chops . 40 

Sweetbreads -----75 

Philadelphia chicken broiled, half ..75 

Squab .. 75 

Jumbo squab 90 

Stuffed squab I 00 



COLD 



Roast beef SO 

Ham . 40 

Pork , . 40 

Corned beef 40 

Tongue 40 

Lamb 75 

Roast turkey 60 

Half roast chicken t 75 

Veal 40 

Leg of mutton ........40 

Baked pork, and beans 35 

SALADS 



Pate de fole-gras ..I 00 

Lamb's tongue - 40 

Sardines 40 

Crackers and milk ....20 

Crackers and half and half ..... 30 

Crackers and cream ..... 40 

Rice and milk, bowl ..... ... 25 

Rice and cream, bowl 40 

Graham wafers and milk „ 25 

" " half and half 35 



Lobster..... 75 Chicken ..60 

Celery. . 40 

Potato 25 Chicory 40 

Watercress 30 Shrimp 50 

Spanish or Bermuda onion 30 

PUDDINGS 



Lettuce. ...... ....25 Romalne 35 

Cucumber 25 

Tomato......... 25 

Escarole 40 

Mixed (2) kinds.... 40 (3) 50 

AND PES 



English plum pudding, hard and brandy sauce 25 



Apple tapioca pudding, claret sauce ..15 

Steamed plum dumpling, rum sauce 15 

Peach pie 15 

Pumpkin pie .. . . 15 

Apple pie 15- 

SWEET 

Rice cake 10 

Wine cake _ 10 

" with Ice cream 25 

Cream cake to 

Charlotte russe 15 

Cream meringue 15 

Macaroon glace 30 

Meringue glacee 25 

Meringue panachee .--30 

Ice cream, strawberry.. l 20 

" coffee 20 

" vanilla _. 20 

" chocolate 20 

*' French 25 

" Neapolitan 25 

Biscuit Tortoni 30 

Nesselrode , 30 



Boston cream puffs 10 

Mince pie 20 

Cold com starch pudding 15 

Hot or cold rice pudding 15 

Snow puddiug......... 15 

DISHES 

Lemon water tee 20 

Roman punch 25 

Siberian punch 25 

Blanc mange . , 15 

Honey In comb 20 

Currant jelly 20 

Farina jelly with cream .20 

Champagne jelly 25^ 

Soft vanilla custard 15 

Soft vanilla custard frozen 25 

Cup custard. _. 15 

Brandy peaches ..50 

Bar-le-Duc jelly 40 

Banana jelly ....... .. . 20 

Brandy jelly ...... . 20 

Orange jelly .... . ...... 20 

Tans *..-.... 10 



Swiss..... 15 

Cream . .20 

Camembert 20 

Grapefruit 40 half ..25 

Malaga grapes . 25 

Concord grapes . 25 

Baked apples & cream, each 15 



CHEESE 

Roqtiefort ---25 

Imperial . 15 

Neufchatel 15 

FRUIT 

Oranges, each 10 

Apples, each 10 

Bananas, each 10 

Apple sauce 15 



TEA, COFFEE ETC 



English 15 

Brie 29 



Pear . .10 

Stewed prunes 15 

Stewed rhubarb 15 

Preserved figs .... ....30 

with cream ..40 



Cup of coffee . 10 Pot of green tea ..20 

with cream 15 Pot of Oolong tea ..20 

Pot of coffee 25 Pot of Japan tea .20 

Demi-tasse coffee 10 Pot of English breakfast tea ......20 

Pot of chocolate 25 Pots of tea with cream 25 

Pot of cocoa 25 Glass of milk . . .10 

Cup of tea io Glass of cream 20 

Buttermilk . 10 

Lunch Bill of Fare ot a Popuiar New York Restaurant 



486 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

varying in size with the volume of the river. One of 
my favorite amusements as a boy used to be to sit on the 
bank of a creek taking care of several lines, to the ends 
of which were tied pieces of meat. No net was needed ; 
the crustaceans were so abundant and so hungry that 
they refused to let go when lifted out of the water, and 
often I landed six or more fastened to the same piece 
of meat. Our favorite picnics were those for which we 
took along no food — only a kettle and a handful of 
salt. The crawfish did the rest. They are more ten- 
der and succulent than lobsters, and even more delicate 
in flavor. 

St. Louis disputes with Portland the honor of being 
the greatest crawfish-eating center in the United States. 
The Mississippi River crawfish has made St. Louis 
famous among epicures. Until a few years ago, the 
"Republic" of that city informs us, "the waters around 
St. Louis on every side fairly swarmed with this fresh- 
water relation of the lobster. Every pond, slough, and 
back water was full of them. All the creeks and pools 
were their homes. Their little mud 'chimneys' dotted 
the creek bottoms and lined the banks of the ponds and 
sloughs. Hundreds of joyous St. Louisans struck out 
for the open on every holiday, armed with a pole, a 
few pieces of liver, and a dip net, bent on their capture. 
They caught so many that they brought them in by the 
sackful. Thousands of the little crustaceans were 
eaten every day of the season. From April until after 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 487 

the snowfalls of November every real St. Louisan ate 
a few crawfish every week." 

In 1910 this abundance had diminished to such an 
extent that a mandate was issued by the State Fish and 
Game officials which put a stop to angling in the city's 
waters. The crawfish multiplies so rapidly, however, 
that it will doubtless soon replenish the waters, and once 
more there will be parts of St. Louis and other cities 
where the evening air will be "laden with the unmis- 
takable odor of boiling crawfish." 

Of the great variety of crabs peculiar to our waters 
the one which most appeals to epicures is the "soft 
shell," which, when very soft, is eaten skin, bones, and 
all. But wait — there is another kind, still more del- 
icate and toothsome — the oyster crab. It dwells within 
the mantle chamber and feeds on the juices of the oyster. 
No wonder it tastes good. Fortunately, it is not one 
of the many enemies of the bivalve, being quite harm- 
less. Its scarcity, combined with its diminutive size, 
makes it a luxury comparable to the old Roman mil- 
lionaire's dish of nightingale tongues. 

A foreigner looking at an American bill of fare is 
struck first of all by the number of ways in which 
oysters are listed : raw, stewed, fried, steamed, baked in 
the shell, scalloped, creamed, and so on; and by the 
fact that the locality from which the oysters that are 
served raw are supposed to come is named — Blue Point, 
Shrewsbury, Rockaway, Buzzard's Bay, Cape Cod, 



488 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Norfolk, Saddle Rock, etc. In this matter there is, to 
be sure, much deception. It has become customary, in 
particular, to give the name of Blue Point to any small 
oyster, and to call any kind of large size a Saddle Rock; 
while many a worthless floated oyster masquerades un- 
der the name of the juicy and delicious Lynnhaven. 

The oyster cracker, and the soda cracker in general, is 
an American specialty which Europeans will doubtless 
adopt some day as tasty, nutritious and easily digested 
additions to the dietary. As sold now, in dust and 
moisture-proof packages, they will easily find their way 
to foreign stomachs. 

Clam chowder, steamed soft clams, and raw Little- 
necks are among the delicacies an American misses in 
Europe. 

As for our scallop, Paderewski thinks it is the best 
edible thing America produces. Many other epicures 
doubtless agree with him. 

As seen in our markets the scallop is simply the ab- 
ductor muscle of the bivalve. The remainder of the 
body is thrown away or used as fertilizer, though much 
of it is tender and of fine Flavor. Nor is this waste- 
fuless the only cause for complaint. The best scallops 
are small ; they are expensive, and the dealers, knowing 
that by soaking them they can bloat a pint of them till 
they fill a quart, subject them to this "freshening," 
which as thoroughly takes all the marine Flavor out of 
them as "floating" takes it out of the oyster. In this 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 489 

condition, too, they spoil sooner and become dangerous 
to eat. I agree with F. Powers that "a man who soaks 
scallops and then offers them for sale should be im- 
prisoned." 

The scallop dredgers were among the first to take 
advantage of the new parcel post, which enables them to 
send the unspoiled mollusc to any one within a reason- 
able distance. 

Concerning our fishes it is easy to say that the finest- 
flavored are the shad, the whitefish, the Chinook 
salmon, the rainbow trout; but when you happen to be 
eating a baby bluefish or a Spanish mackerel just out 
of the water, you may change your mind for the time 
being; you are sure to do this, also, if you happen to be 
in New Orleans and eat fresh pompano as prepared by a 
Creole cook. The sheepshead, the smelt, the catfish, 
the sturgeon, the halibut, are excellent; and so is the 
swordfish, which is far too little known among gour- 
mets. Its flesh might be more tender, but it has a fine 
Flavor, suggesting a combination of salmon and hal- 
ibut. 

It is for the cod, however, that I wish to plead most 
earnestly. Some persons (usually persistent smokers, 
or individuals whose sense of smell is not well de- 
veloped) maintain that the cod is "tasteless." As a 
matter of fact it has a subtle but most delicious Flavor 
which, when the fish is fresh, reminds me of the flesh of 
crawfish. 



49o FOOD AND FLAVOR 

At present (1913) the cod enjoys the advantage of 
being the only fish, with the exception of trout, that 
can be bought alive in the markets of New York. 
"Live cod," when listed on restaurant menus, is in great 
demand. It is not always equally good, however, be- 
cause much of the "live cod" is really live hake, which 
is far inferior in Flavor. The substitution of haddock 
for cod is less objectionable. Much of the salted and 
dried fish which goes into the typically American cod- 
fish balls, is also cod in name only. Dealers who use 
benzoate of soda or other chemicals to preserve it, give 
elaborate directions for soaking them out. It is need- 
less to say that this soaking process also takes out all 
the Flavor. 

VEGETABLES STEADILY GAINING GROUND. 

Historians are usually so deeply interested in all the 
petty details of politics that such trifles as the food 
which keeps us alive gets no attention at all. 
Macaulay was a laudable exception. Another is Mac- 
master. In the first volume of his "History of the 
People of the United States" he remarks that a century 
ago tomatoes, cauliflower, and eggplants were not to be 
found at the corner grocery; oranges and bananas were 
a luxury of the rich; and there were no cultivated 
varieties of strawberries or raspberries. Of apples and 
pears there were plenty, but "none of those exquisite 
varieties, the result of long and assiduous nursing, 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 491 

grafting, and transplanting, which are now to be had 
of every greengrocer." 

In Boston, at that time, "beef and pork, salt fish, 
dried apples and vegetables, made up the daily fare 
from one year's end to another." "The wretched fox 
grape was the only kind that found its way to the 
market, and was the luxury of the rich." "Among the 
fruits and vegetables of which no one had then even 
heard are cantaloupes, many varieties of peaches and 
pears, tomatoes and rhubarb, sweet corn, the cauli- 
flower, the eggplant, head lettuce and okra." 

To-day, how different the situation! In the cata- 
logues of the seedsmen more than fifty kinds of veg- 
etables are listed, and of each kind a dozen, or several 
dozen, distinct varieties are offered for sale. Yet these 
varieties represent only a very small proportion of the 
vast number that have been created. 

In his instructive book on Plant Breeding, L. H. 
Bailey has a chapter on one of the most deserving of 
American originators of new varieties of vegetables, 
N. B. Keeney, of Leroy, New York. Mr. Keeney was 
at one time raising sixty-five varieties of garden peas 
and sixty-nine of beans, thirteen of the latter of his own 
originating, including the stringless kinds which have 
been introduced throughout the country by Mr. Burpee, 
and which are one of America's greatest achievements 
in plant development. The Professor was told by Mr. 
Keeney that fully three thousand varieties and forms 



492 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

of beans had been discarded by him as profitless! 

In the same volume Professor Bailey informs us that 
the date of the first fruit book is 1817. "In 1845, 
nearly two hundred varieties of apples were described 
as having been fruited in this country, of which over 
half were of American origin." In 1872 the number 
of varieties described was 1823, and in 1892 Ameri- 
can nurserymen offered for sale 878 varieties of 
apples. 

Among the vegetables which have been varied and 
improved by American breeders are the squashes, pump- 
kins, sweet potatoes, rhubarb, celery, corn, lettuce, 
tomatoes, watermelons, cantaloupes, cucumbers, po- 
tatoes, and eggplants. 

One vegetable, Brussels sprouts, has not been im- 
proved but greatly impaired by some man (whether an 
American or a European I do not know) who crossed 
it with cabbage, making the sprouts larger but less finely 
flavored and also less digestible. 

As I wrote of tomatoes, which are of American 
origin, in the chapters on France and Italy I have only 
a few words to add. 

It is an odd fact that although we can claim this suc- 
culent vegetable as one of the New World blessings, it 
was in the Old World, in the Mediterranean countries 
that its gastronomic value was first fully realized. In 
the United States, as in England and Germany, there 
seems to have been a prejudice against it because of its 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 493 

belonging to the same family as the deadly nightshade. 

Much ingenuity has been expended in creating new 
varieties and prolonging the season. It is a most un- 
fortunate circumstance that some of our most important 
vegetables are killed by the slightest frost. This is true 
of squashes, pumpkins, potatoes, beans, cucumbers, 
melons, and tomatoes. Knowing that Luther Burbank 
had succeeded in making apple-blossoms frost-proof, I 
once asked him to please do the same for tomatoes. He 
shook his head and replied that that was beyond his 
powers, because of their semi-tropic origin and hab- 
its. 

Yellow tomatoes are not so much used (except for 
preserves) as they deserve to be. They have a very 
fine Flavor of their own. In regard to red varieties, it 
may be well to warn the breeders not to go too far in 
their efforts to create "beefsteak" varieties by reducing 
the seed pulp to a minimum. It is in that pulp that the 
richest Flavor is found, and the seeds do not appear to 
be indigestible. 

Like the tomatoes, celery belongs to a family of 
poisonous plants and was also for a long time consid- 
ered poisonous, which is doubtless the reason why it is 
only within comparatively recent years that it has come 
so much into demand. To-day it is raised all the way 
from Florida to Michigan, where it flourishes, particu- 
larly in the muck-bed area. 

Celery is not indigenous to our soil. It has been 



494 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

used in Europe for centuries, but in the kitchen rather 
than as an ornament of the dining-room. In Italy, 
France, Germany, it is treated as a pot-herb, for flavor- 
ing stews and soups, the unbleached plant being pre- 
ferred because of its more powerful Flavor; but all 
celery tops and leaves are useful for this purpose; they 
certainly do much to give zest to soups and stews. 

So far as known England was the first country to 
appreciate the charm of blanched celery. In a book 
called "The New World of Words," published by a 
nephew of Milton in 1678, we read that "Sellerie is an 
herb which, nursed up in a hot-bed and afterwards 
transplanted into rich ground, is usually whited for an 
excellent winter sallad." 

We also use it to some extent as a salad, but it needs 
no vinegar for pungency, and most of us prefer to eat 
the stalks plain, cum grano salts. Few who eat it 
this way know that it is much more digestible if the 
stalk is broken in pieces and the fiber stripped off. 
Stewing softens the fibers. Cooked au jus, celery is 
almost better even than raw. If I had the choice of a 
dozen vegetables at dinner, I would more often than 
any other choose celery au jus. 

Raw celery is seen so much more frequently on the 
table in this country than in any other that it may be 
virtually considered an American specialty. Nowhere 
else is it so crisp and tender, or so eagerly craved. It is 
a nerve tonic, and we need nerve tonics. 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 49^ 

While melons are not indigenous to America, many 
of the choicest varieties of cantaloupes and watermelons 
are creations of our growers. Nowhere in the world 
will you find an)^thing to surpass in sweetness and fra- 
grance the Emerald Gem, the New Spicy, or the Rocky 
Ford, most luscious of all. 

The New World's most important contribution to 
other countries, so far as nutritive value is concerned, is 
the potato. How Ireland and Germany, in particular, 
could have ever got on without this vegetable, it is 
difficult to imagine. 

Sweet potatoes also are of American origin. They 
have been slow in making headway in Europe because 
they do not, like the white potato, grow in almost any 
soil and climate. Farmers' Bulletin No. 324 is devoted 
to sweet potatoes. Its author, W. R. Beattie, of the 
Bureau of Plant Industry, remarks that "as a com- 
mercial truck crop the sweet potato would be included 
among the five of greatest importance, ranking perhaps 
about third in the list. As a food for the great mass of 
the people living in the warmer portions of our country 
the use of this crop is exceeded by hominy and rice 
only." In the Philippine Islands it is at certain sea- 
sons almost the only food available for the lower 
classes. There are many varieties, the soft, moist 
kinds being richer in Flavor than the others. These 
are preferred in the South where a mealy sweet potato 
would not be eaten. 



496 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

THE FRUIT EATERS' PARADISE. 

Many a time, in contemplating the conditions de- 
scribed under the heading of "Ungastronomic America," 
have I wished I lived in Europe; yet, every time, my 
gastronomic allegiance to the Stars and Stripes is 
cemented again by the contemplation of the glorious 
fruits we produce. This feeling is the stronger because 
I had the rare good fortune to grow up in an Oregon 
apple orchard. Oregon apples gave me my college 
education, and my sturdy health, too, for nothing is 
more wholesome than apples, and from my eighth to 
my eighteenth year I ate more apples than anything 
else. In our orchard of many hundreds of trees there 
were scores of varieties, some of which I would no more 
have thought of eating than a raw potato. Not that 
they would not have found a ready sale in any market; 
but at home they were rejected because of their inferior- 
ity in Flavor to the Gravenstein, the Red Astrachan, the 
Baldwins, the Northern Spy, Yellow Newtown and 
Green Newtown Pippins, Winesap, Roxbury Russet, 
White Winter Pearmain, Swaar, Seek-No-Further, 
and the Rambo, juiciest of cider apples and good to eat 
out of hand. 

We also used to peel and cut up apples for drying. 
Very few people know the most delicious way to eat 
apples. We knew it. Turn the wheel of the peeler 
round two or three times; that removes the skin; then 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 497 

keep on turning till all the pulp has peeled off into your 
left hand. Raise your head, drop into your mouth the 
pulp of the apple and you will know the meaning of 
the word Flavor. And the best of it is that if eaten 
that way, raw apples are not indigestible for anybody. 
Thirty-two years after these glorious feasts had come 
to an end I was pleased to get for review E. P. Powell's 
delightful book, "The Country Home," * and to find 
that that eminent connoisseur's ideas regarding the best 
American apples coincided in the main with my youth- 
ful convictions. I cannot too strongly urge my readers 
to get that volume and enjoy Mr. Powell's remarks — 
written con amore as well as with the knowledge of an 
expert — on the kinds of apples, pears, peaches, plums, 
cherries, and other fruits which it is most advisable to 
raise on American farms, and what is the best way to do 
it. Strawberries, gooseberries, currants and blackber- 
ries have a chapter to themselves, for of all these there 
are distinct American varieties — and under the heading, 
"Tons of Grapes," the author gives pages of appetizing 
information about the fruit which, next to apples, is a 
prime article of diet. He shows how you can manage 
to have grapes six or seven months every year, and tells 
what are the best varieties to grow. Every farmer and 
owner of a country home should raise grapes. "It is 
cheaper and better food than meat and vegetables, and 
they never tire of it. I recommend that you go out 

iNew York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1904. 



498 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

before breakfast and sample a half-dozen sorts; repeat 
the experiment before dinner, and if the digestion is 
poor, take nothing else for supper." 

Grapes are nothing if not American — that is, some 
grapes are. They are indigenous to the soil, growing 
wild nearly everywhere, from the extreme south to the 
banks of the Androscoggin in Maine, where I have 
often picked them. 

A curious and important difference between grapes 
in America and in Europe is noted by Professor Bailey 
in his "Sketch of the Evolution of Our Native Fruits." 
The American grape — that is, the ameliorated offspring 
of the native species, "is much unlike the European 
fruit. It is essentially a table fruit, whereas the other 
is a wine fruit. European writings treat of the vine, 
but American writings speak of grapes." Yet it was 
not till the middle of the nineteenth century that "the 
modern table use of the native grape began to be appre- 
ciated and understood." 

That grapes were not brought from Europe to 
America is absolutely certain. Long before Columbus, 
there came across the sea Leif, who, in the words of 
Justin Winsor, "found vines hung with their fruit, 
which induced Leif to call the country Vineland." In 
New England, Edward Winslow wrote in 1621 that 
"here are grapes, white and red, and very sweet and 
strong also." 

Professor Bailey's book is largely devoted to the men 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 499 

who improved American fruits — men who, as he justly 
intimates, deserve commemoration quite as much as 
persons who are distinguished in military operations. 
But while we, as a nation, have reason to feel proud of 
the achievements of these men, a great deal more re- 
mains to be done. Professor Bailey does not say which 
of our Eastern grapes he considers the best, but I am 
sure he would agree with me that the Delaware has a 
finer Flavor than any other kind, and of the four chief 
American grapes the Delaware is the only one "which 
gives any very strong evidence of foreign blood." This 
point has been disputed; but it is certainly true that 
"the types we grow are yet much inferior to the Old 
World types." Our Concords, Niagaras, and Ca- 
tawbas, in particular, are capable of great improvement 
in the matter of Flavor. Fortunes are in store for 
growers who will take the hint. 

It is well to bear in mind that there are varieties, such 
as the Iona, Eldorado, Brighton, Worden, Hayes, and 
Lindley, which, though not to be found in our wretched 
markets, are delicious. They are enjoyed by owners of 
country residences and their guests, even though city 
folk are unaware of their existence. 

Altogether, the American grapes have given rise to 
some eight hundred domestic varieties, about one hun- 
dred of which may be found listed in catalogues. 

Flavors cannot be transplanted. European grapes 
grown in America get a different "taste," and the wines 



5<x> FOOD AND FLAVOR 

made of them have not the same bouquet. A few 
exceptions there are, notably the muscatel grape, which 
is almost as delicious in California as it is in Spain. 
But as a rule it is a waste of money to attempt to dupli- 
cate European fruits. Many millions have been spent 
in vain efforts to do this. To succeed, we must be 
American. 

Long ago we learned to enjoy our game and our many 
varieties of distinctive sea foods of unique Flavor. 
Our native vegetables, wild nuts, fruits, and berries, we 
also appreciated, but these still offer limitless oppor- 
tunities for improvement of their qualities — a proceed- 
ing which pays better than importing things European. 
Our nuts, among them the hickory, pine, and black wal- 
nut, are delightfully racy of the soil. They, too, are 
as American as the Indians, and wherever possible their 
intermarriage with our domesticated fruits and berries 
is a consummation devoutly to be wished. 

Our wild crab-apples, for instance, of which there 
are five types, while excessively sour, have a superabun- 
dance of flavor. By transfusing their blood into the 
domesticated apples we can eliminate the excess of acid 
and give to many of our big apples a richer aroma. 

The persimmon is one of our native fruits of unlim- 
ited possibilities. Heretofore, our markets have been 
supplied chiefly with the Japanese kaki, raised in Cali- 
fornia or Florida. It is a delicious fruit, but there are 
native varieties which in the opinion of some are even 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 501 

finer than the Japanese. Ordinarily the wild American 
persimmon is as sour and astringent as a crabapple, fit 
only for the 'coon and the 'possum. But there have 
been enthusiasts whose belief in the future of our per- 
simmon amounted to a passion. One of these was 
Bryant, "whose zeal as a cultivator and whose interest 
in fruit-growing were almost as great as his poetic 
enthusiasm." To Professor Bailey he expressed his 
belief that the finest persimmons of the future would 
be grown in the alluvial meadows of southern In- 
diana. 

While the persimmon is as delicious as the banana, 
the demand for it has not been so great as it will be 
when the public learns that this fruit has the finest 
Flavor and is most wholesome when it looks like an 
overripe tomato which no one would buy. An Italian 
pushcart man used to smile when he saw me approach- 
ing. He knew I would pick out those which were so 
soft that they could be taken home only in a paper box. 
"Ah, you know, you know !" he used to say, pleased that 
his best things were not left on his hands by the unin- 
formed multitude. 

As a boy I used to enjoy hugely the May apple — a 
plum-shaped fruit growing on a low plant. What was 
my indignation when, some years later, I began to study 
botany and found in Professor Asa Gray's text book a 
description of that fruit, ending with the words: 
"Eaten by pigs and boys." I promptly made up my 



502 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

mind that if adults do not relish this luscious fruit they 
have something to learn from pigs and boys. 

Another Southern fruit, abundant in Missouri, which 
greatly pleased my boyish palate, was the pawpaw. 
Professor Bailey says that most people do not relish its 
flavor, nor does he believe that it will be possible to 
awaken much interest in this fruit. Mr. Powell, on the 
other hand, pays it a high tribute. He sees "no reason 
why this delicious fruit, a sort of hardy banana, should 
not be grown everywhere in our gardens." 

Those are the words of an epicure. I am sure the 
pawpaw has a great future. To many it may be an 
acquired taste, but so are olives, and the most appetiz- 
ing of all table delicacies, Russian caviare. I thank 
my stars that I always took naturally to such things; it 
has added much to the pleasures of life. So far as 
pawpaws are concerned, it will be easier to persuade 
skeptics to try to learn to like them if they are told that 
their juice is considered by medical men a great aid to 
digestion. Papain is much used as a substitute for 
soda mints. 

GOVERNMENTAL GASTRONOMY. 

It is safe to say that in no other country has the Gov- 
ernment done so much as ours has to advise and aid 
those who raise foods and those who prepare them for 
the table. In the preceding pages reference has been 
made to dozens of Farmers' Bulletins and other publi- 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 503 

cations containing the results of experiments, made at 
the cost of many millions of dollars, with a view to in- 
forming the public on those matters. Every State and 
Territory now has its own Agricultural Experiment Sta- 
tions. Primarily, the aims of these stations are of 
course agricultural and economic; in the last analysis, 
however, what are all the Bulletins issued by them but 
so many lessons in national gastronomy 1 ? 

A few years ago the Department of Agriculture 
boldly invaded the kitchen itself, providing excellent 
lessons in the arts of preparing and preserving good 
food, in such bulletins as "The Care of Milk and Its 
Use in the Home," "Bread and Bread-making," "Food 
Customs and Diet in American Homes," "Care of Food 
in the Home," "Economical Use of Meat in the 
Home," "Preparation of Vegetables for the Table," 
"Composition and Digestibility of Potatoes and Eggs," 
"Cereal Breakfast Foods," "Food Value of Cottage 
Cheese, Rice, Peas, and Bacon," "Cheese and Its Eco- 
nomic Uses in the Diet," "Varieties of Cheese," "Fish 
as Food," "Sugar as Food," "Beans, Peas, and Other 
Legumes as Food," "Poultry as Food," "Use of Fruit 
as Food," "Nuts and Their Uses as Food," "Canning 
Vegetables in the Home," etc. 

For farmers, truck gardeners, and those who market 
foods, there is a still longer list of Bulletins, Circulars, 
Experiment Station Reports, and other Government 
publications. To mention only a few of them: 



504 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

"Potato Culture," "Sheep-feeding," "The Sugar 
Beet," "Asparagus Culture," "Marketing Farm Pro- 
duce," "Care of Milk on the Farm," "Ducks and 
Geese," "Rice Culture," "The Apple and How to Grow 
It," "Grape Growing in the South," "Home Fruit 
Garden," "Home Vineyard," "Cheese-making on the 
Farm," "Cranberry Culture," "Squab Raising," "Meat 
on the Farm: Butchering, Curing, Etc.," "Importation 
of Game Birds and Eggs for Propagation," "Strawber- 
ries," "Turkeys," "Canned Fruits, Preserves, and Jel- 
lies," "Cream Separators on Western Farms," "Rasp- 
berries," "Tomatoes," "The Guinea Fowl," "Cucum- 
bers," "Maple Sugar and Syrup," "Home Vegetable 
Garden," "Celery," "Poultry Management," "Sweet 
Potatoes," "Onion Culture," "A Successful Poultry and 
Dairy Farm," "Bees," "A Successful Hog and Seed- 
Corn Farm," "Manufacture of Butter for Storage," 
"Butter-making on the Farm," "Facts Concerning the 
History, Commerce and Manufacture of Butter," 
"The Cultivation of Mushrooms," and many more. 

These valuable monographs were prepared by ex- 
perts, mostly specialists, women as well as men. Dis- 
tributed free when first published, they are afterwards 
sold at cost price, usually a nickel apiece; few of them 
cost more than a dime. Full lists, with prices and gen- 
eral instructions can be obtained by sending a postal 
card to the Superintendent of Documents at Washing- 
ton. There are separate price lists of documents re- 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 505 

lating to agriculture, dairying, food and diet, irrigation, 
soils, wild animals, fishes, health and hygiene, poultry 
and birds, etc. 

In addition to all these documents there are many 
papers in the Daily Consular and Trade Reports con- 
taining valuable information on foreign foods and 
methods of marketing, gathered by the Consuls at the 
Government's request. 

The supplying of information on everything relating 
to foods is only one phase of the Government's gastro- 
nomic activity. Another consists in calling attention 
to neglected edible plants. On this subject one of the 
experts of the Bureau of Plant Industry says : 

What we call weeds are no more so than other plants that 
we term vegetables. Weeds are vegetables, and our so-called 
vegetables were once upon a time no more than weeds. The 
classification results from a matter of habit. We are slaves 
of habit, and because we are so it has not occurred to us that 
we could eat anything but just the old list of vegetables our 
ancestors have eaten for generations. But now we are having 
our eyes opened and are beginning to peer into fence corners 
and back yards and wild pastures for new and wonderful food- 
stuffs that we have heretofore regarded as just weeds. It is a 
bit mortifying that because of this preconceived idea we have 
let most nutritious and valuable foodstuffs go to waste under 
our very eyes, while perhaps we were wailing that we had 
little to eat and that vegetables were too expensive and so on. 

Among the plants thus neglected, but which, if prop- 
erly improved and marketed, would enrich truck 
farmers, are yellow dock, dandelions, milkweed, golden 



506 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

thistles, mallows, purslane (recommended by Thoreau), 
poke shoot, red clover, sorrel, hop shoots, yarrow, leek, 
and lupines. 

A third gastronomic function of our Government is 
the importing of foreign fruits and vegetables that 
promise to add agreeable variety to the American diet- 
ary. For this purpose experts are sent to all parts of 
the world to find and bring home new plants which are 
then acclimated in accordance with the latest scientific 
methods. 

David Fairchild, one of these gastronomic explorers, 
has repeatedly given in the "National Geographic 
Magazine" fascinating glimpses of the activity of the 
Bureau of Plant Industry in this direction. What he 
says about the date is particularly suggestive. 

Search through the deserts of the world has revealed 
the fact that the dates of our markets are only one or 
two kinds of the vast number of varieties known to the 
Arabs and others whose principal food is the date. 
"Those we prize as delicacies are by no means looked 
upon by the desert dwellers as their best." The search 
has brought to light, among other desirable kinds, "the 
hard, dry date, which Americans do not know at all, 
and which they will learn to appreciate as a food, just 
as the Arab has." 

In 1906 no fewer than a hundred and seventy vari- 
eties of dates had been introduced, and many of these 
are now growing successfully in Arizona. The time 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 507 

will come when we can have the choice of as many 
different kinds of dates in our markets as we have now 
of apples and pears. And this experiment with dates 
is, as Mr. Fairchild says, something that "private en- 
terprise would not have undertaken for decades to 
come." 

Experiments by the Bureau of Plant Industry are 
being carried on also in Porto Rico, the Philippines, 
Hawaii, and the Panama Canal Zone. It makes one's 
mouth water to read what Mr. Fairchild writes, for 
instance, of the mangosteen. There are at least fifteen 
edible species. "It has a beautiful white fruit pulp, 
more delicate than that of a plum, and a flavor that is 
indescribably delicate and luscious, while its purple- 
brown rind will distinguish it from all other fruits and 
make it bring fancy prices wherever it is offered for 
sale." 

The mango has for many years tried to secure a place 
in our markets, but the specimens supplied — usually 
from worthless seedling trees — have given it a bad 
name. 

The Government office of Pomology has been 
cultivating the infinitely superior Mulgoba mangoes of 
East India, "fit to set before a king," and will probably, 
ere long, add this to the list of marketable delicacies. 
In India there are mangoes of all sizes and flavors, 
some of which Americans of the future will no doubt 
enjoy. 



508 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

The United States Government has, furthermore, 
gone into the business of creating entirely new fruits, 
and valuable varieties of nuts, particularly pecans, on 
which the Department of Agriculture has specialized. 
Great improvements in corn, wheat, and other cereals 
have also been made at the Government's Experiment 
Stations, not to speak of stock breeding, some of which 
has a gastronomic value. Nearly every volume of the 
"Year Book" of the Department of Agriculture has a 
chapter or two on this subject, and some of the papers 
have been reprinted separately. 

Probably the two most important of the new crea- 
tions are the tangelo and the citrange — new names for 
new fruits which seem destined to become as common 
in our markets as oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruit. 

The tangelo is a hybrid of the tangerine orange and 
the pomelo (grapefruit). There are several varieties. 
It is described as being sweeter than the pomelo, but 
more sprightly acid than the tangerine. It has the 
loose "kid-glove" skin of the latter fruit. "The char- 
acteristic bitter flavor of the pomelo is considerably 
reduced but remains as a pleasant suggestion of that 
popular fruit." I have had no opportunity to try 
this novelty, but Professor Bailey pronounces it "an 
excellent dessert fruit and an interesting and valuable 
acquisition." 

Of the citrange, also, there are several varieties, the 
Rusk, Willits, and Morton. They are the outcome of 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 509 

an attempt to combine the hardiness of the worthless 
trifoliata orange {citrus trifoliatd) with the sweetness 
of the common orange. The Morton is very near to a 
sweet orange; while the Willits makes a good drink and 
replaces the lemon for culinary purposes. The Rusk 
"makes a very delightful citrangeade, a good pie, and 
excellent marmalade and preserves. For the latter 
uses it may ultimately be grown extensively." 

burbank's new fruits and vegetables. 

As a creator of new plants useful to mankind as su- 
perior foods, or because of their beauty, no man is the 
peer of Luther Burbank, of Santa Rosa, California. In 
the words of David Starr Jordan, president of the 
Leland Stanford University, "Luther Burbank is the 
greatest originator of new and valuable forms of plant 
life of this or any other age." "He is all that he has 
ever been said to be, and more," says Professor Bailey 
of Cornell University, America's chief authority on 
horticulture; and the leading foreign botanist, Hugo 
de Vries, of Amsterdam, admits that "in all Europe 
there is no one who can even compare with Luther 
Burbank. He is a unique, great genius." 

That last sentence explains Mr. Burbank's suprem- 
acy. He has, it must be admitted, enjoyed unique ad- 
vantages. The climate of California has been in his 
favor, enabling him in some cases to raise more than 
one crop in a year and to operate on a larger scale than 



510 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

any one else has ever done. Of fruits alone, for in- 
stance, he has had under test at one time "300,000 
distinct varieties of plums, different in foliage, in form 
of fruit, in shipping, keeping, and canning qualities, 
60,000 peaches and nectarines, five to six thousand 
almonds, 2,000 cherries, 2,000 pears, 1,000 grapes, 
3,000 apples, 1,200 quinces, 5,000 walnuts, 5,000 
chestnuts, five to six thousand berries of various kinds, 
with many thousands of other fruits, flowers, and 
vegetables." 

Such advantages, however, would not have enabled 
Mr. Burbank to make his marvelous improvements 
along all the lines hinted at in the quotation just made. 

The world owes these choice gifts to the fact that he 
is a genius, an artist, an epicure, and an enthusiast, as 
well as a plant breeder. 

"The most obvious truth which strikes one when he 
attempts to make a reflective or historical study of the 
improvement of our native fruits, is the fact that in 
nearly every case the amelioration has come from the 
force of circumstances and not from the choice or design 
of men. . . . What has been called plant breed- 
ing is mostly discovery; or, in other words, so far as the 
cultivator is concerned, it is accident," writes Professor 
Bailey, in his "Sketch of the Evolution of Our Native 
Fruits." In another of his books, "Plant Breeding," 
after stating that in 1892 American nurserymen were 
offering 878 varieties of apples, he adds that "it is 




LUTHER BURBANK 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 511 

doubtful if one in the whole lot was the result of any 
attempt on the part of the originator to produce a va- 
riety with definite qualities." 

These remarks apply to the methods of plant breed- 
ers in general. But there are exceptions, and Luther 
Burbank is the most important of them by far. True, 
he also had to rely on accident, such as the discovery of 
a California poppy with a small crimson spot, which he 
gradually enlarged till the whole flower was crimson; 
and it is for the purpose of taking advantage of lucky 
"accidents" that he raises plants in such unprecedented 
numbers. But chance is only one of his assets. He 
has in his mind a mental pattern, which "is made just 
as real and definite as the pattern of an inventor, or 
the model of a sculptor," as his biographer remarks. 

In other words, his imagination conjures a fruit im- 
proved along a definite line in Flavor, color, size, or 
keeping quality, and he then proceeds to hybridize till 
he has achieved the ideal he has in his mind, though it 
may take a decade or longer to do it. 

In one of Mr. Burbank's bulletins there is a picture 
of John Burroughs sampling the "Patagonia" straw- 
berry in its originator's garden at Santa Rosa. In this 
berry Mr. Burroughs discovered "a wonderful pine- 
apple flavor" and pronounced it the most delicious 
strawberry he had ever tasted. It is claimed for it 
that it is an exceptionally good keeper, and that it can 
be freely eaten by those with whom the common acid 



512 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

strawberries disagree. It is the result of a full quarter 
of a century's patient experiments. For twenty years 
Mr. Burbank had, as he frankly admits, tried in vain 
to improve on the finest berries in the market. Know- 
ing that all our best strawberries have descended wholly 
or in part from one of the Chilian varieties, he got one 
of his collectors in Chili, some years ago, to send him 
seeds of wild strawberries from the Cordillera and from 
the Coast regions. Among the plants which grew from 
these seeds he found some that promised to be of 
great value when crossed with the best American and 
European strains. With his usual Edisonian patience, 
he experimented until "among the very numerous seed- 
lings under test was found this unique berry, which was 
at once recognized as the grand prize." 

In this little genealogical tale we have an excellent 
illustration of that "judgment as to what will likely 
be good and what bad" which, in the words of Profes- 
sor Bailey, is "the very core of plant-breeding," and in 
which "Burbank excels." The Burbank bulletins give 
many similar instances ; and in view of the fact that his 
rivals and others have belittled his labors, it is proper 
that he should plead his own cause. His bulletins call 
attention to some of the results of his methods as com- 
pared with those of other plant-breeders. Here, for 
instance, is a fact for his detractors: "Nearly 95 per 
cent, of the new plums introduced since 1890, now 
catalogued as standards, originated on my own farms, 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 513 

although nearly four times as many new varieties have 
been introduced by other dealers. Most of the intro- 
ductions of others are not now generally even listed." 

The Burbank plum, which was introduced less than 
twenty years ago, is now perhaps more widely known 
than any other plum, the world over; but, he says, 
"hundreds of better plums have since been produced on 
my experiment farms." 

The Burbank potato is now the universal standard 
in the Pacific Coast States and is gradually taking the 
lead in the Middle West. It originated at Mr. Bur- 
bank's home place in Massachusetts in 1873., and was 
subsequently much improved by him in California. 
As H. S. Harwood remarks in his admirable book on 
the career and the achievements of Mr. Burbank, "New 
Creations in Plant Life" (the Macmillan Co.), "he has 
had four main objects in view in the work: A potato 
with a better flavor, one with a relatively larger amount 
of sugar, one that will be a larger size and all of the 
same uniform shape and size, and one that will better 
resist diseases and be a larger yielder than any potato 
now known." In all these points he has succeeded; 
never, anywhere, have I eaten potatoes so mealy, so 
digestible, and, above all, so rich in Flavor as Bur- 
bank's. When first introduced in California, in 1876, 
"old potato growers would have none of it, because it 
was new and because it was white. You will have to 
hunt a long time to find red potatoes now" writes Mr. 



514 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

Burbank. J. M. Eddy, Secretary of the Stockton 
Chamber of Commerce, stated in 1910 that in San 
Joaquin County 4,750,000 bushels, or 95 per cent, of 
the entire output, were Burbank potatoes; and accord- 
ing to the U. S. Department of Agriculture the Bur- 
bank potato is adding more than $17,000,000 to the 
farm incomes of America alone. 

"Corn is America's biggest crop. To add only one 
kernel to the ear of corn means a five million bushel 
crop increase. 

"In the best corn States, corn grows from eight to 
ten feet high, and bears an average of slightly less than 
two ears to the stalk. 

"During the past summer Luther Burbank, on his 
Santa Rosa experiment farm, has grown corn sixteen 
feet in height, bearing thirty-two ears to the stalk." 

These statements are cited from the prospectus of 
the Luther Burbank Society issued in the year 1912, 
relating to the twelve superbly illustrated volumes to 
be published in which the Burbank discoveries or in- 
ventions (nearly 1,300 in all) are described with full 
directions as to how his methods can be applied on 
every farm, in every fruit orchard, in every truck or 
home garden, to the delight and profit of thousands. 

One of Mr. Burbank's absolutely new creations is 
the pomato. It is the evolution of the potato seedball, 
heretofore absolutely useless, except for experimenters. 
"It first appears," says Mr. Harwood, "as a tiny green 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 515 

ball upon the potato top, and develops as the season 
progresses into a fruit the size and general shape of a 
small tomato. . . . It is delightful to the taste, 
having the suggestion of quite a number of different 
fruits and yet not easily identified with any particular 
one. . . . It is fine eaten raw out of the hand, 
delicious when cooked, and excellent as a preserve." 

Some years ago Mr. Burbank wrote in regard to his 
new plants that every one "has proved better than 
those known before in some new quality, in some soils 
and climates. All do not thrive everywhere. Please 
name one good fruit or nut that does." 

The last two sentences are directed at those of his 
critics who triumphantly point to cases of failure of 
his new products in this or that locality. Judgment 
has to be used; "certain varieties which are a success 
in one locality may be, and often are, a complete fail- 
ure a few miles distant, or near-by on a different soil 
or at a different elevation." 

The Burbank Crimson Winter Rhubarb has been 
offered by unprincipled dealers in the cold Northern 
States, though they must have known that it could not 
prove successful there. For this new type the claim is 
made that it is the most valuable vegetable introduced 
during the last quarter of a century. So many fortunes 
have been made with it in California and Florida that 
it has been named "The Mortgage Lifter." The chief 
forester of the Government of South Africa reports that 



516 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

at Cape Town, where all other rhubarbs had been a 
failure for two centuries, the Burbank Crimson Winter 
variety proved to be a complete success. Yet Mr. Bur- 
bank now has a still further improved variety, the 
Giant, which excels the original Crimson Winter Rhu- 
barb "at least 400 per cent." 

The list of delicacies for which American — and 
foreign — epicures are indebted to this inventor in- 
cludes many other vegetables, berries, fruits, and nuts. 
He has not only improved the Flavor of the black- 
berry, but taken away its thorns. He has created a 
genuine new species by uniting the blood of the black- 
berry with that of the raspberry. The phenomenal 
berry now in such great demand on the Pacific Coast, 
was evolved from the dewberry. Burbank's Himala- 
yan yields four times as much by weight as any other 
berry, and keeps twice as long; hence it has become 
"the most profitable shipping berry." 

Everybody likes quince jelly and marmalade, but it 
remained for Mr. Burbank to create the pineapple 
quince, which can be eaten out of hand like an apple. 
For his improved cherry fabulous sums have been paid 
in Eastern markets — over three dollars a pound in one 
case. 

"Cauliflower is only cabbage with a college educa- 
tion," said Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson. 
What Luther Burbank is doing besides creating entirely 
new fruits and vegetables, is to give the older ones a 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 517 

college education. He has grown, to cite his own 
words, "several millions of new fruits ... in the 
constant effort to eliminate faults and substantiate 
virtues." 

Rurbank's Formosa plum blends at least fifteen dif- 
ferent varieties in its origin. It is "unequaled in qual- 
ity," free from all disease, and keeps remarkably well. 
Another of his new plums is practically without a pit, 
while a third has the flavor of a Rartlett pear. Into 
another he has bred "a delicious fragrance, so powerful 
that when left in a closed room over night the whole 
apartment will be delightfully saturated with the 
odor." The new Nixie plum has, when cooked, the 
flavor and appearance of cranberries. It is described 
as "the forerunner of a wholly new class of fruits," 
and as having an "almost incomparably delicious" 
flavor, which it owes to the blood of the wild Sierra 
plum. 

Some of Mr. Rurbank's prunes excel the best of the 
French; and his plumcot is another of the entirely new 
fruits he has given the world. In creating this, he bred 
together a wild American plum, a Japanese plum, and 
an apricot, making a fruit which differs in flavor, color 
and texture from any other kind. There are already 
several varieties of it. 

Of his successful experiments in "educating" nuts 
three may be mentioned. He has made chestnut trees 
bear at the unheard-of early age of a year and a half; 



518 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

he has created a "paper shell" walnut; and, what is 
more remarkable still, he has removed from the walnut 
the disagreeably bitter inside skin which makes it indi- 
gestible because of the tannin in it. 

Grapes have not been neglected. In the summer of 
191 1 I asked him if he would not undertake to educate 
some other grapes grown in California to the level of 
the Muscatels and at the same time give the Muscatel 
a thicker skin to make it better able to stand transporta- 
tion to the East. He answered in a letter dated July 
25, that he was "at work on several of the California 
grapes to give them better flavors, thicker skins, and 
better keeping qualities; and," he added, "I assure you 
that I am having good success. They are not yet ready 
to send out." 

The Newtown Pippin is one of the finest apples, but 
he has a descendant of it which is a far better bearer 
and has "an added aromatic fragrance." There are 
improved peaches, too; also, many beautiful flowers 
new to the world ; but of flowers this is not the place to 
write. 

Is it not strange that this unselfish wonder-worker, 
whose object is not to make money (except for the pur- 
pose of enabling him to go on with his experiments), 
should have met with so much hostility? Yet he 
declares that the greatest inconvenience or injustice he 
has met is not misunderstanding, prejudice, envy, 
jealousy, or ingratitude, but the fact that purchasers 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 519 

are so often deceived by unscrupulous dealers who, mis- 
using his name, foist upon the public hardy bananas, 
blue roses, seedless watermelons, and a thousand other 
things, including United States Government thorny 
cactus for the Burbank Thornless. 

On this point Mr. Burbank has reason to write with 
a feeling of mingled pride and resentment. In 1896 
the first scientific experiments for the improvement of 
cactus as food for man and beast were made on his 
farms. Eight years later, when these costly experi- 
ments were crowned with success, the Department of 
Agriculture spent $10,000 in searching for a thornless 
cactus like those already produced by Mr. Burbank. 
The result was a failure; the "spineless" cactus sent out 
were not spineless, not safe to handle or feed to stock, 
while the fruit was "seedy and poor." 

The Burbank improved cactus, on the other hand, is 
free not only from the long spines but from the even 
more harmful microscopic spicules. It is therefore "as 
safe to handle and as safe to feed as beets, potatoes, 
carrots or pumpkins." The new thornless varieties 
will produce a hundred tons of good feed where the 
average wild ones will yield only ten tons of inferior 
fodder. It can be grown on millions of acres of deserts 
where no other edible vegetation can be raised, and as 
it is possible to produce a thousand tons of feed on a 
single acre, the imagination conjures up the time when 
beef will once more be as abundant, as good, and as 



520 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

cheap as it was in the days of unlimited pasturage. 

The leaves or slabs are valuable as food for other 
farm animals, including poultry. 

The fruit, also, is produced in enormous quantity 
and is likely to become as important in our markets as 
bananas and oranges. The cactus bearing the best 
fruit is not yet quite spineless, but the fine bristles on 
the fruits are easily removed with a small whiskbroom 
before picking. Burbank's 1912 Spineless Cactus bul- 
letin lists more than a dozen varieties cultivated for the 
fruit, and fifteen varieties raised for forage. 

The cactus fruit "can be produced at less than one- 
tenth the expense of producing apples, oranges, apri- 
cots, grapes, plums, or peaches." There is never a 
failure in the crop, and the fruit can be stored like 
apples. It will oust the injurious "fillers" and adul- 
terants now used by manufacturers. Excellent jams, 
jellies, syrups, marmalades and preserves can be made 
of cactus fruit at a minimum cost. For candies and 
for pickling, also, it can be used to advantage, and "the 
juice from the fruits of the crimson varieties is used for 
coloring ices, jelly and confectionery. No more beau- 
tiful colors can be imagined." 

Mr. Burbank takes a keen delight in his new plants, 
and like other artists, he likes to know that you really 
see and feel what he has done. When we vis- 
ited him in the summer of 1909, in company 
with John Burroughs and the California poet, 



GASTRONOMIC AMERICA 521 

Charles Keeler, nothing seemed to please him more 
than the proof we gave that we were actually fa- 
miliar with his creations, by our comments on the 
improvements he had made in his crimson and crimson- 
and-gold California poppies and the wonderful Shirleys 
since we last raised them, the previous summer, in our 
Maine grounds. I felt like Parsifal in the enchanted 
garden. We had a chance to stroke the spineless black- 
berry and cactus, and to taste various kinds of berries 
and fruits more luscious than any that mortals have 
eaten since the Garden of Eden was destroyed. 




.'.-■ :twX.Hi4,'*n> W, -' 



XII 

COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 



PALATABILITY DECIDES PERMANENCE. 




UTHER BURBANK is, as already 
noted, an epicure. No one enjoys his 
new products more than he does, and 
in his bulletins he never omits to call 
attention to the "added aromatic 
fragrance" or the delicious flavor of 
his improved fruits. 

What I wish particularly to call attention to now, 
however, is that he fully realizes the commercial value 
of Flavor. He holds, as Mr. Harwood wrote in 
1905, that "it is highly important in the production of a 
new fruit or vegetable to make it preeminently palat- 
able, for, in the last analysis, it is palatability that de- 
cides the permanence of any new food. If palatability 
be eliminated as a factor, then mankind is prone to 
consider the food, — no matter what its form or char- 
acter, — a medicine, to be taken because it produces cer- 
tain necessary results." 

522 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 523 

When I informed him that I was writing a book on 
Food and Flavor he sent me a long letter, dated Decem- 
ber 18, 1912, from which I take the liberty of citing the 
following illuminating paragraphs: 

"I am very glad that you have taken up the subject 
of flavor in food. It is a far more important matter 
than most people believe. Color and flavor both aid 
digestion very materially, most especially flavor, and 
my work from the first has been among food and drug 
plants to obtain pure, pleasing flavors (and in flowers, 
fragrance) and I have been as successful in that line as 
in any other line of work. 

"Vegetables — like celery, cabbage, cauliflower, car- 
rots, turnips, beets, lettuce, peas, beans, sweet corn and 
especially artichokes, have not only had ill flavors, but 
have been lacking in sweetness. These can be just as 
readily added as form, size or color. Even the pot 
herbs need attention fully as much as anything else, 
and they will take a lot of time. 

"Take savory, sage, or any other herb seedlings, four 
out of five of them will have a poor flavor, while the 
fifth will have the most delicious odor, flavor and fra- 
grance. Sometimes only one in a hundred or so has 
this delightful combination. It is simply a matter of 
selection to produce these herbs so that all will have the 
delightful flavor of the single individual. 

"It is astounding that more attention has not been 
placed on this line of plant improvement, though until 



524 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

my work commenced in this line some twenty-five years 
ago, no one seems to have thought that these changes 
could be made. 

"I have only outlined briefly the almost infinite num- 
ber of improvements that could be named, not only 
in the plants named, but in all other plants as well as 
fruits; in which people recognize flavors most quickly. 

"It is almost necessary to knock a man down before 
you can convince him that there are differences in 
flavors of herbs and vegetables, or that such things as 
coffee, cinnamon and other plants can be improved in 
this respect." 

EATING WITH THE EYES. 

The object of this whole book is to furnish a "knock- 
down" argument as to the overwhelming importance of 
securing the best flavors in food and to demonstrate at 
the same time that commercially the richest Flavor pays 
best. 

A few years ago Professor J. L. Henderson of the 
Harvard Medical School astonished newspaper readers 
by saying that the needed food for one person costs only 
ten cents a day and that the rest we spend goes largely 
for flavor. 

Had he made this remark some years hence he 
might have said "goes chiefly for flavor." At the 
present time, unfortunately, not a few purchasers of 
foods are guided to a considerable extent by appear- 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 525 

ance. Dr. Wiley has written trenchantly on the widely 
prevalent habit of "eating with the eyes" — of selecting 
articles of food for their size and color instead of their 
flavor. Inferior or imitation butter, for example, is 
artificially colored and the ignorant consumer meekly 
buys it. The epicure buys butter for its Flavor and 
the dealer cannot deceive his eyes. To him, in the 
words of Dr. Wiley, "the natural tint of butter is as 
much more attractive than the artificial as any natural 
color is superior to the artificial. There is the same dif- 
ference between the natural tint of butter and the 
artificial as there is between the natural rose of the 
cheek and its painted substitute. The dairymen of our 
country are honest and honorable and evidently do not 
clearly see the false position in which the practice of 
coloring butter puts them. When the dairymen of the 
country understand that the naturally colored products 
will bring the highest price on the market and appeal 
more strongly to the confidence of the consumer it is be- 
lieved the artificial coloring in butter will be relegated 
to the scrap pile of useless processes." Natural butter 
is yellow in May and June; but whoever buys yellow 
butter at other times in the belief that it is fresh is a 
greenhorn. Even harmless coloring matter, like carrot 
juice, is objectionable, because it makes the butter spoil 
sooner. 

George K. Holmes, Chief of the Division of Foreign 
Markets, contributed to the Year-book of the Depart- 



526 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

merit of Agriculture for 1904 an article entitled "Con- 
sumers' Fancies" which gives some curious illustrations 
of the stupid underrating of the all-important Flavor. 
To cite one of them: "Although it may seem that it 
is positively not worth while, to say nothing of money, 
to buy a nut except to enjoy its flavor, yet to taste is 
assigned only 25 per cent., while 50 per cent, is given to 
the eye, the remaining 25 per cent, going to the con- 
venience of cracking the shells." 

Judges at county fairs have been known to allow 20 
points on looks and only 15 on the flavor of foods. 
They knew that city folk are easily fooled by appear- 
ances. On this point Mr. Holmes remarks: "In the 
city, a large city especially, the appearance of an apple 
is everything and taste nothing, unless the purchaser 
was once a country boy and enjoyed the freedom of an 
orchard." And again: "City-bred people, who have 
little knowledge of the origin and real character of food 
and food products, such as the country man has, and 
who have no childhood's acquaintance with the good 
things of the farm, are especially liable to suggestion; 
they are governed largely by appearances in their selec- 
tion of farm products and are easily deceived by the 
trick of a false name or a false ingredient in a pre'pared 
food:' 

One of the standing jokes in our comic papers con- 
cerns the "hayseed" who comes to town and buys a 
"gold brick." If the farmers edited comic papers, they 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 527 

would have a standing joke about the city folk who buy 
their showy products, leaving them the best flavored, 
which may not appeal to the eye. 

It is not true, however, that all the showy fruits are 
insipid and all the small plain fruits full-flavored. 
The delicious Winter Nellis pear is not nearly as pretty 
to look at as the Bartlett, yet it is quite as popular, 
while the Bartlett is as luscious as it is beautiful and 
often imposing in size, especially on the Pacific Coast. 
Among the apples in our markets, also, some of the big- 
gest and most beautiful are the best to eat. 

It cannot be denied that there is something to be 
said in favor of "eating with the eyes." Women 
naturally want the apples and oranges, the berries and 
vegetables, and the viands on their tables, to look pretty 
and inviting. Nor is there any reason why they should 
not have their way. The eye and the palate can be 
reconciled by breeding fruits and vegetables that com- 
bine good looks with agreeable flavor. 

Luther Burbank has done the world a tremendous 
service by originating the luscious fruits and vegetables 
briefly referred to in the preceding chapter, but perhaps 
his greatest achievement is the demonstration that there 
is virtually no limit to obtaining fruits of any size, 
form, or flavor desired, and that the good looks and 
flavor can be amalgamated at pleasure with shipping 
and keeping qualities. He himself is preparing many 
pleasant surprises of this kind beside those I have re- 



528 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

ferred to, and hundreds of others are profiting by his 
example and following his methods. 

SCHOOL GIRLS AS PURE FOOD EXPERTS. 

Three girls in a Massachusetts Normal School in 
1904 accidentally launched a new kind of pure food 
movement which is of historic importance, as it puts to 
shame the dilatory methods of Federal and State Gov- 
ernments. 

They missed their lessons one day, after feasting at 
a surreptitious midnight spread on "strawberry" jam. 
Their chemistry professor, Lewis B. Allyn, advised 
them to analyze a can of the same preserves to find out 
what there was in it that could have made them ill. 
They did so, and found that the jam contained no 
strawberries at all but was made of apple sauce, ether, 
grass seeds, red ink, and salicylic acid. 

It looked all right; but what is food for the eye is 
often poison for the stomach. That was the important 
lesson this incident was destined to teach the inhab- 
itants of Westfield, Massachusetts. 

Peter Clarke Macfarlane, who tells the whole story 
grapically in "Collier's Weekly" for January 11, 1913, 
writes : 

From that day forward the girls in the chemistry class 
began to qualify as pure-food experts. They examined the 
canned goods, the preserves, the medicines, and foods of every 
kind that came from the stores of Westfield into the homes in 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 529 

which they lived. The housekeepers were appalled to find the 
sort of thing they had been putting upon their tables. And the 
grocers were somewhat appalled, but much more annoyed. It 
is very disturbing, no doubt, to have the canned goods you make 
the most profit on, the ones that bear the very handsomest litho- 
graphs, returned almost in wheelbarrow loads because of some 
fussy girls stewing chemicals in a laboratory. I leave it to 
any one if it would not be annoying when a grocer is working 
energetically to build up trade in a new line of chocolate which 
he can sell in larger packages for less money than chocolate was 
ever sold before to have a miss still wearing her hair in braids 
say right out loud in the store for every one to hear: 

"Pooh ! I analyzed that in class. It is thirty per cent, 
cornstarch. That is why you can sell it cheaper than real 
chocolate. And it has potash in it, too, which turns to suds 
when you add water, and that 's what makes it look so deliciously 
creamy and frothy when you pour it into the cups. No suds in 
my chocolate, thank you!" 

Professor Allyn, under whose guidance this epoch- 
making crusade was undertaken — a crusade which 
should and could be carried on in every town through- 
out the country — was elected a member of the Board of 
Health. Opportunity was given housekeepers and all 
others who suspected foods of being adulterated, to 
have them examined by the two hundred schoolgirls 
and their professor. The results were placed on exhi- 
bition in the Board of Health Museum. In this way 
Professor Allyn taught tradesmen that it does not pay 
to handle impure goods when once the public is enlight- 
ened as to the difference between what looks good and 
what is good. 



53© FOOD AND FLAVOR 

The Westfield Board of Health now publishes a list 
of foods which it considers pure. With that list in 
hand it is safe to go a-marketing. Offending manufac- 
turers and dealers have been converted to the old doc- 
trine that honesty is the best policy, and the plan, alto- 
gether, has worked so well that hundreds of letters have 
come to the secretary of the Board of Health, asking 
"How can we give our town a pure-food standard like 
Westfield ?' 

One of the methods Professor Allyn adopted to teach 
the inhabitants of Westfield the folly of "eating with 
the eyes" was to buy a can of peas, open it in presence 
of an audience, and pour in some hydrochloric acid, a 
test for copper. Then he inserted a gleaming butcher 
knife and when he drew it out a few moments later it 
was coated with copper. 

Not all dye stuffs used for coloring canned or other 
foods are as objectionable as copper, but most of them 
are undesirable because, as Dr. Wiley has pointed out, 
they make it possible to conceal inferiority of material 
or lack of freshness. In "Good Housekeeping" for Feb- 
ruary, 1913, Dr. Wiley had an article headed "Dan- 
ger in Vivid Green Vegetables" in which he pointed out 
that after a delay of six years the Remsen Food Board 
ratified his conclusions that the sulphate of copper used 
to give the unnatural bright color to canned peas, beans, 
and spinach is injurious to health and should not be 
allowed in foodstuffs. "It must have been a bitter pill 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 531 

to swallow," he adds, "for were they not appointed in 
the hope that Wiley would be reversed on all points'?" 

Another pure-food expert has given an amusing 
recipe for making a bottle of maraschino cherries: 

"Take a cherry and remove the stone. Get the color 
out by holding it over the bleaching fumes of sulphur. 
Remove a portion of the fleshy part of the fruit to leave 
mostly fiber. Then inject some artificial sweet sub- 
stance to give it a 'body' and a sugarlike quality. Dye 
it with a brilliant red coal tar dye. Put it in a bottle, 
and sell it to a greenhorn." 

A greenhorn is denned in the dictionary as "a person 
who is easily imposed upon." You prove yourself a 
greenhorn if you go into a grocery store and buy glasses 
of preserved fruits and vegetables dyed in brilliant 
rainbow hues such as no honest fruit ever exhibits. 
You show yourself a greenhorn if you buy canned 
peaches for their shape. Peaches picked and halved 
before they are ripe retain their shape beautifully. If 
you want to eat with your eyes buy this kind by all 
means. Peaches picked and halved when the sun has 
ripened them on the tree have Flavor; this kind is for 
those who eat with their mouth. 

Many of us are not greenhorns. We would buy 
more California peaches in winter if the cans had 
a label with these words on it: "These peaches were 
picked ripe ; they may look a little mushy, but they are 
much pleasanter to eat than those which are picked un- 



532 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

ripe to make them keep their shape. Try them and 
note the difference." 

Fortunes are in store for canners wise enough thus to 
recognize the commercial value of Flavor and to edu- 
cate the public in this simple way, as well as by adver- 
tising in the newspapers and magazines. A consumer 
who has eaten some of the flavorsome ripe peaches will 
come back for another can — or a dozen cans — much 
sooner than one who has eaten the hard insipid halves 
of unripe peaches. 

PENNYWISE DEALERS AND PINEAPPLES. 

Herbert J. Webber relates in the "Yearbook of the 
Department of Agriculture" for 1905 that when the de- 
partment's pineapple-breeding experiments were 
started, the question of what varieties to cultivate gave 
considerable trouble. Many growers insisted that the 
red Spanish was by far the best variety, because of its 
adaptability to open field culture, freedom from dis- 
ease, and good shipping qualities. Others contended 
that "as varieties existed that were of far better quality 
and flavor, the market should be educated to demand 
these better so-called fancy fruits." 

The words I have italicized indicate a difficulty 
which confronts us — a problem of vast and national 
importance, the chief impediment to our getting the 
best varieties of fruits, imported as well as domestic, 
and of vegetables, too, into our markets. While some 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 533 

dealers are sufficiently astute to realize that sales are 
multiplied tenfold if the best fruits and vegetables are 
offered, the ruling majority are so penny wise as to think 
only of the shipping and keeping qualities. It is not 
too much to say that these short-sighted dealers have 
entered into a conspiracy to suppress the best varieties 
because their greater delicacy and juiciness make them 
more perishable. 

The story of the pineapple illustrates this point. In 
the Far South, where this luscious fruit grows, its frag- 
rance at the time of ripening pervades the whole neigh- 
borhood. In our markets the pineapple's perfume is so 
faint that you have to flatten your nose against it be- 
fore you get any at all. The reason is that these 
"pines" not only are usually of an inferior sort, but that 
they are picked and shipped before they are ripe. 

Bananas picked green ripen gradually and become 
sweet. Not so pineapples. What happens when they 
are picked unripe is told in a Bulletin of the Hawaii 
Agricultural Experiment station (1910) kindly for- 
warded to me by one of the officials after I wrote an 
article on the subject for the New York "Nation": 

A study, of the ripening of pineapples has disclosed the fact 
that the sugar content of the fruit is derived exclusively from 
the leaves of the plant and does not increase after the fruit has 
been removed from the plant. If pineapples are picked green 
and allowed to ripen the sugar content at complete ripeness is 
the same as it was when the fruit was removed from the plants. 
An analysis of the fruit shows that they contain no substance 



534 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

which can be changed into sugar during the ripening process. 
Fruits picked too green and allowed to ripen, therefore, lack 
greatly in sugar content and in flavor. The sugar content of 
green fruits, or fruits ripened after being picked too green, is 
about 2 or 3 per cent., while that of fruits ripened on the plant 
ranges from 9 to 15 per cent. 

The words in italics give the gist of the matter. 
"Pines" picked and shipped unripe never get their full 
Flavor, and its unique Flavor is the one thing that 
makes a pineapple desirable, for its nutritive value is 
slight, and sweets and acids can be more conveniently 
and cheaply obtained in other ways. 

Here is a description of the pineapple at home: 
"The most delicious fruit to be found in Brazil is the 
pineapple. Northerners who eat this fruit weeks after 
it has been picked in its green state have only a faint 
idea of its sweetness, lusciousness and delicious flavor. 
Here the pineapple is picked when the tropical sun has 
perfected its chemical work, and the fruit is ready to 
melt in the mouth. It would be an affront to nature to 
sprinkle sugar upon it when sliced. It is mellow, over- 
running with juice, and of incomparable flavor." 

Luther Burbank has tried to cultivate a "pineapple 
Flavor" in other fruits, and when John Burroughs 
found it in his new "Patagonia" strawberry, he was 
much pleased. It is, indeed, such an exquisite fra- 
grance that one would imagine the importers and deal- 
ers would think of it, above all things, as a bait to allure 
purchasers. But no; most of these gentlemen attach, 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 535 

as we have seen, chief importance to keeping and ship- 
ping qualities. 

The consequence of this pennywise policy is that 
about one-tenth as many pineapples are sold in our 
markets as would be if the Commercial Value of Flavor 
were fully recognized. 

The canners, it is instructive to note, have benefited 
by the mistake of their competitors. They wait till 
the fruit is ripe and flavorsome before they tin it, and 
that is the reason why the luscious Hawaiian canned 
pineapple suddenly sprang into such great favor. In 
connection with this fact it is interesting to read Dr. 
Wiley's testimony that "canned fruits properly pre- 
served retain their natural aroma and flavor better than 
any other form of canned food." 

The rapidity with which the public discovered the 
excellence of this Hawaiian product indicates that fresh 
pineapples also will gain enormously in favor if the 
dealers will only supply the "fancy" kinds in abun- 
dance and at reasonable prices. 

What the enlightened public wants is not only Fla- 
vor, but variety in Flavor. Pomologist William A. 
Taylor of the United States Bureau of Plant Industry 
has penned a maxim which dealers cannot ponder too 
much. "Attractive diversity in appearance and quality 
stimulates a demand for fruit among consumers." 
Yet, as another Government expert attests, "there has 
for many years been a strong tendency in the American 



536 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

fruit trade to urge fruit-growers to reduce the number 
of varieties in their commercial plantations." The 
results we see in our markets. Of the dozens of choice 
sorts that are described in the catalogues of nursery and 
seedsmen only a fraction are offered to consumers. 

SUCCESSFUL PEACH-GROWERS. 

The condition into which those pennywise dealers 
who are indifferent to Flavor and oppose variety have 
brought our peach market is a national disgrace and a 
gastronomic calamity. Most of the Southern peaches 
sent North seem now to be of two or three kinds and 
those not of the best. To be sure, it makes little differ- 
ence what kinds are sent, for all are equally spoiled by 
being picked, like the pineapples, before they are ripe. 
California peaches melt in the mouth like ice cream — 
if eaten in California. In the East they used to con- 
trast with Atlantic Coast peaches by their leathery con- 
sistency and lack of Flavor, due to the fact that they 
had to be picked unripe to stand transportation. To- 
day they contrast less, because Eastern peaches also 
are so usually picked unripe. 

In the peach-growing business, under present con- 
ditions, "the proportion of failures to successes is at 
least as ten to one," according to Erwin F. Smith. The 
proportion might be reversed if this expert's advice, as 
given in "Peach-Growing for Market" (Farmers' Bul- 
letin No. 33), were generally followed by farmers. 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 537 

The most important point he makes is that the peaches 
to be marketed successfully must not only have size, 
color, and firmness enough to stand shipment, but also 
superior flavor. 

It was by leaving his peaches on the tree till the sun 
gave them that superior flavor that one man I know of 
became rich. He had an orchard about twenty miles 
from New York and when the first crop had thoroughly 
ripened he picked a wagonload to take to the city. He 
never reached it. Every basket was sold before he had 
gone a mile, and all the other loads were thus disposed 
of to his neighbors, although he charged the full New 
York retail prices. The middleman's usual share of 
the plunder remained in his own pocket. 

What would you think, Mr. Farmer, or Mr. Business- 
Man-Who-Wants-to-Live-in-the-Country, of buying a 
twenty-two-acre tract of worthless pasture land, putting 
it into peaches, and getting therefrom in twelve years a 
profit of $44,000? 

It can be done, and it has been done. The very in- 
teresting and instructive story was told in detail in the 
Philadelphia "Saturday Evening Post" of September 
10, 1910, by Forrest Crissey. It is the story of J. H. 
Hale, of Glastonbury, Connecticut. One day he came 
across an old native seedling peach tree, loaded with 
sweet wild fruit that had a delicious flavor and melted 
in his mouth. While he was eating one of these 
peaches, the thought came into his mind: "If this 



538 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

stony old hillside will grow such peaches as these, wild 
and without cultivation, what is to hinder its produc- 
ing a splendid crop of choice, cultivated peaches'?" 

There was nothing to hinder; the trees were planted, 
and when they bore fruit he put up a sign reading: 
"Headquarters for Hale's Peaches. Peaches Ripened 
on the Trees." When he began to market them in the 
cities he sorted them into three grades, charging fancy 
prices for the best. These and other details of his 
method helped; but the great secret of his success was 
painted on his sign : " Peaches Ripened on the Trees" — 
a sign which proved that he understood the Commercial 
Value of Flavor, which made him a millionaire. 

Apples, fortunately, do not need to ripen entirely on 
the tree. They can be picked before they are ripe and 
get their full flavor in the cellar. Cold storage makes 
them keep longer still — unfortunately, I feel tempted to 
say, for this tempts the middleman to hold them for 
higher prices till they have become mealy and lost much 
of their aroma. Many of the apples sold in our mar- 
kets in winter are over a year old. They will not be 
after the consumer rises to assert his right to Flavor. 
The English are more alert. I most earnestly call the 
attention of American apple-growers and eaters to the 
following sentences from an article in the Consular and 
Trade Reports (April 5, 1911), explaining why 
Australian apples have an advantage in English and 
other European markets over American fruit : 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 539 

"Cold storage extending over a period of six months 
is not the best means of preserving the flavor of a fruit. 
On the other hand the Australian and Tasmanian crops 
being six months later than the American, the fruit 
comes direct from the orchard with its original flavor 
almost unimpaired." 

At the Illinois Experiment Station the important 
fact was demonstrated that mature apples keep much 
better in cold storage than immature apples (Farmers' 
Bulletin No. 193). 

The new method of pre-cooling fruit, especially 
peaches and oranges, gives much hope for the future. 
Two illustrations in the "Yearbook of the Department 
of Agriculture" for 1909 illustrate this point. One 
pictures peaches as handled and delivered in New York 
by the old method — the small, pallid, leathery, flavor- 
less things we all know and groan over. The otheu 
shows red, ripe peaches, luscious to the eyes and the 
palate alike. Pre-cooling does it; for if this method is 
used, "the fruit may be left on the trees to attain a 
greater degree of maturity, thus assuming a much bet- 
ter quality." 

FORTUNES FROM BANANAS AND ORANGES. 

When other fruits have vanished, the banana is 
always for sale, even in the smallest village fruit stores. 
But it was not always so. A few decades ago the 
banana was a rarity in the United States and a luxury. 



c 4 o FOOD AND FLAVOR 

How did it happen to get its present vogue 4 ? Was it 
because the public discovered that there is a great deal 
of nourishment in this fruit — that millions in the tropics 
live on it"? Not in the least; I doubt if one banana- 
eater in a hundred knows or cares whether or not it con- 
tains even as much nourishment as a cucumber or a 
watermelon. What has given the banana its great 
vogue is simply and solely its delicious Flavor. In its 
Flavor lies its commercial value; its Flavor has put 
money — often a fortune — into the pockets of hundreds 
of thousands of planters, shippers, and wholesale and 
retail dealers. There are whole fleets of steamers for 
carrying bananas to American ports, and other fleets 
carry them to Germany, to England, to France, and 
other European countries. In Germany, 320 tons sup- 
plied the demand in 1899; in 1911 the imports exceeded 
30,000 tons, and the demand grows like an avalanche. 
Banana flour, made from the dried fruit, also has a 
great future as a breakfast cereal. A few years ago a 
new source of profit was opened. Have you ever eaten 
any "banana figs'"? If not, try them at once; they are 
deliciously sweet, and they can be freely eaten by those 
who have to avoid figs because of their innumerable 
small seeds. Within a few years seven factories 
sprang up in Jamaica, all of them coining money by 
making and exporting "banana figs" as well as "fig 
bananas," which differ from the others in being dried 
whole. 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 541 

In 1912 the people of the United States consumed 
over six billion bananas, or more than five dozen for 
every man, woman, and child, the value of them ex- 
ceeding fourteen million dollars. Yet this enormous 
demand is a trifle to what it will be when the public has 
learned how to eat them. Few know how delicious 
they are fried, or cooked in other ways. As for raw 
bananas, most Americans still eat them with the eyes, 
selecting those which are bright yellow (or red) and 
unspotted, ignorant of the fact that the most luscious 
by far are those that are spotted or almost black; the 
pushcartmen sell them at a cent apiece, or two for a 
cent. These are not rotten, but simply ripe, as long 
as they are white inside. They are much more digest- 
ible, too, than the unspotted ones. To make them still 
more so, follow the advice of "Tip" of the New York 
"Press," who writes: 

I have had men and women tell me they could n't eat bananas 
at all without suffering from indigestion, and to them I always 
pass on the recipe told me by a great lover of the fruit who said 
that invariably he scraped off the little fuzz remaining on the 
banana after the skin is peeled off. Before he began to do this 
the fruit disagreed with him; afterward he ate as much of it 
as he pleased. 

Unlike bananas, the citrus fruits — oranges, lemons, 
and pomelos (grapefruit) have no nutritive value 
worth talking about. You might eat a hundred of 
them a day and — well, if they did n't kill you they 



542 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

would n't keep you alive either. Consequently the 
fortunes made by growing annually twenty million 
boxes of these much-coveted fruits and distributing 
them throughout the country, once more attest the 
Commercial Value of Flavor. And in the long run 
the best flavored are sure to survive, even though for a 
time greenhorns may be fooled into buying inferior 
kinds because of size or color. 

MELONS, HONEY AND FLAVORING EXTRACTS. 

It would be interesting to know how many million 
dollars American farmers earn every year by raising 
melons. The Rocky Ford district in Colorado alone 
ships about 1,500 carloads of cantaloupes, and these 
are but a drop in the bucket. Nobody would dream of 
buying melons for food; their commercial value is en- 
tirely a matter of Flavor. And in proportion as the 
Flavor was improved has the raising of melons become 
more profitable. Time was when the old-fashioned 
"mushmelon" was tolerated; but compared with the 
choice varieties of cantaloupes now in the market it was 
but one remove from the pumpkin. Many insipid mel- 
ons still find their way into our markets, but gradually 
they will be eliminated; and the sooner this is done, the 
better it will be for the dealer's purse as well as the 
consumer's palate. 

The manufacturer who advertises that "there is only 
one way to make a cigarette permanently popular and 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 543 

that is to make it permanently good," knew what he 
was talking about. In that respect there is no differ- 
ence between cigarettes and foodstuffs. Read what is 
said on this point in Farmers' Bulletin 193: "An ex- 
planation of the popularity of the Rocky Ford melons is 
that they are well graded and usually uniform in qual- 
ity. As Mr. Blinn explains, the Rocky Ford canta- 
loupe is a product of years of systematic selection, and 
it requires the same methods to maintain its excellence 
as were employed in its development. Without care 
in selection of seed, the natural tendency to vary will 
soon cause a good strain of Rocky Ford melons to re- 
vert to an undesirable type." 

Sweet as honey are the best cantaloupes; yet how dif- 
ferent ! The sweetness in them is the same, for there is 
only one kind of sweet in the world. What makes 
them differ is the Flavor. Were it not for its Flavor, 
there would be no honey in the market, for sugar is a 
much cheaper sweet. Thanks to its Flavor, honey is 
worth to the beekeepers of the United States $20,000,- 
000 a year. New York State alone has 30,000 bee- 
keepers, and it is said that "even when eggs sell at 50 
cents a dozen the hen stands below the bee as a payer 
of dividends." And bees need no expensive feed; one 
man says he has not fed his in twenty years. 

Twenty millions a year is a goodly sum, yet it is 
a mere fraction of what honey will yield when its merits 
for diverse uses are more generally understood. There 



544 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

are many varieties of it, their Flavor depending on the 
fragrance of the flowers from which the bees collect 
them — clover, linden, sage, horsemint, buckwheat, mag- 
nolia, etc., but all are agreeable to most persons. 
American children would hail with delight the Swiss 
custom of eating honey with their bread and butter, and 
it would do them good, for honey is one of the most 
wholesome sweets — much more than most of the can- 
dies the boys and girls buy. It is nutritious, too, a 
tablespoonful having the same food value as an egg. 
But beware of adulterations ! 

Some of the best cakes and confections are made of 
or with honey. Girls often make their own fudge — 
why not all their candies'? The manufacturers would 
still prosper even if one-half the girls should take to 
making their own sweets; some of these men are mil- 
lionaires; and what made them so is the fact that they 
realized the Commercial Value of Flavors. The sale 
of plain, unflavored sugar is also profitable, but the per- 
centage of gain is not nearly so great as in the case of 
candy. 

Flavoring extracts have been called an American spe- 
cialty; for while they are used considerably by 
foreign cooks and bakers, ours are much more addicted 
to their use. The most popular of all the flavoring ex- 
tracts is vanilla; its home is Mexico, and we take nearly 
all the vanilla beans harvested there; but that does not 
cover the demand. Many firms get rich by making 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 545 

imitation vanilla and other flavors. Some of these are 
strong medicines. The safest place to eat vanilla ice 
cream is at home where you know it is made of the de- 
liriously fragrant bean and not of coal tar products. 

Most appetizing, also, is caramel, or burnt sugar, for 
flavoring desserts. Liqueurs are used, and nuts, but 
most desirable and wholesome of all are the flavors 
made of fruit. Think of the commercial value of these 
fruit flavors — natural or artificial — to thousands of 
druggists whenever the weather creates a demand for 
soda water ! 

OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN. 

Many women make a comfortable living by utilizing 
their inherited or acquired knowledge of the kind of 
flavoring that will make certain cakes and candies sell 
briskly. Along these lines there are unlimited oppor- 
tunities for commercial gain. 

Many novelists have coined large sums by exploiting 
local color in their tales. There is such a thing as local 
flavor, too, which awaits the attention of the women or 
men bright enough to utilize it. Wild fruits and ber- 
ries, for instance, abound all over the country, many 
of them being peculiar to one region. These can be 
used for imparting their flavor to various fruit syrups, 
jams, and jellies. In the future, thousands of women 
will doubtless earn a competence by sending to the city 
markets preserves with such novel and appetizing local 



546 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

flavors. Some are already doing it, and they have 
found a demand at the women's exchanges usually far 
in excess of the supply. 

The delicious loganberry, now so plentiful on the 
Pacific Coast, is hardly known in the East. Here is a 
grand opportunity ; and why has no one thought of the 
commercial possibilities inherent in the luscious mul- 
berry — an incomprehensibly neglected delicacy? There 
is the salmonberry, too, and other good things of the 
West, notably in Alaska, which has been called "pre- 
eminently a land of small fruits and berries." The 
flavor of most of the Alaskan berries was found to be 
excellent, by Walter W. Evans. 1 

Alaska's gold mines will ultimately be exhausted, 
but the commercial value of the rich and unique flavors 
of these fruits and berries will endure. Excellent pre- 
serves can be made of the wild "Oregon grape," as well 
as the service berries, unknown in the East. The dry 
salal berry of Oregon and Washington might be edu- 
cated and turned to use ; and there are many others. 

FEEDING FLAVOR INTO FOOD. 

The present chapter might be made as long as this 
whole book is, for the Flavor is what determines the 
commercial value of nearly all foodstuffs. I know 
a young woman who makes deliciously flavored 

1 "See Bailey's "The Evolution of our Native Fruits" for useful 
hints along these lines. 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 547 

butter and has no trouble in disposing of it for a dollar 
a pound. Thousands of persons who do not like the 
butter they can buy are now eating peanut butter, which 
has the full flavor of the nut. The commercial value 
of this is shown by the fact that in 1911 a million 
bushels of peanuts were converted into "butter." 
Fortunes await those who will manufacture almond 
"butter," because almonds not only have a more deli- 
cate flavor but are more digestible than peanuts. 

Storage eggs are quite as nutritious as fresh eggs; the 
sole difference is in the Flavor; and those of us who 
can afford to do so, gladly pay twice as much to get the 
better flavor. 

In the preceding chapters I have frequently called 
attention to the greater commercial value of the best- 
flavored foods — as in the case of the Bresse chickens, 
Wiltshire bacon, Southdown mutton, Westphalian 
ham, Hungarian flour, full-cream cheeses, etc. For a 
full list see the index under "Commercial Value of 
Flavor." In this chapter I will call attention to only 
one more way of increasing the value of things we buy 
to eat. It is perhaps the most important of all 
methods — one which points the way to many large for- 
tunes. 

Once when I crossed the Atlantic westward on a Ger- 
man steamer the supply of eggs, calculated for nine or 
ten days, gave out on the fourth because nearly every- 
body on board was ordering them constantly. They 



548 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

were the best eggs I had ever eaten. The head steward, 
on being questioned, explained that they came from a 
farm where a special kind of feed was given to the hens. 
The farmer had fed that Flavor into the eggs. 

At once it flashed on me that great and profitable in- 
dustries might be built up along that line and I wrote 
an article about it for The Epoch. That was more than 
two decades ago. At that time there was not the same 
interest there is now in dietary questions. More re- 
cently, the Department of Agriculture has taken up the 
matter and in several of its bulletins reference is made 
to experiments in feeding both unpleasant and pleasant 
flavors into food. 

At the North Carolina Experiment Station, in 1909, 
hens were fed for two weeks on onions, the result being 
so strong an onion flavor in the eggs that they could not 
be used. A week after discontinuing the onions, the 
hens again laid eggs of normal flavor. 

Milk and butter are similarly spoiled when the cows 
eat wild garlic or quantities of turnips. Everybody 
knows, too, that some kinds of ducks are not fit to eat 
because of the fish they live on. In Egypt a locust diet 
makes poultry unfit to eat, and sometimes there are in 
our markets chickens that are unobjectionable except 
for an insect tang which mars their flavor. Pork from 
pigs fed on garbage is spoiled by a worse tang. 

On the other hand, most animal foods can be im- 
proved by feeding desirable flavors into them. Grouse 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 549 

are best in blueberry season, and the flavor of all game 
varies with its feed. Kongo chickens fed on pine- 
apples are said to be a morsel fit for the gods. Belgian 
partridges owe their excellence to the beetroot they 
feed on. 

Mexican pigs are often fattened on bananas. They 
must make prime pork. In the chapter on England 
I noted that it is chiefly the excellence of the feed 
(skim milk and barley) that determines the superior 
flavor and commerical value of Wiltshire bacon. 

In the good old times, before our forests were de- 
stroyed, the beechnut was the principal food for 
swine. 

"The hogs which are fattened by eating the beechnut 
and acorn produced a species of pork of a peculiar and 
very highly prized flavor," writes Dr. Wiley. "The 
celebrated hams and bacons of the southern Ap- 
palachian ranges were produced from the variety of 
hogs known as the razor-backs fattened on mast, 
namely, the chestnut, beechnut, and acorn." Yams 
(belonging to the sweet-potato class) also help to 
flavor these southern pork products. 

The ham and bacon which made Virginia beloved of 
epicures helped also to make the neighboring Baltimore 
one of the country's gastronomic centers. In the days 
when canvasback ducks and diamondback terrapin were 
abundant Baltimore was the gourmet's headquarters. 
There were terrapin palaces in those days, in Baltimore 



550 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

and Philadelphia, as now there are lobster palaces in all 
our large cities. 

It has been stated frequently that the canvasback and 
red-head ducks and the diamondback terrapin owe their 
superior flavor to the food they have in common, the 
so-called wild celery, which grows in abundance in 
Chesapeake Bay. Now, this "wild celery" is no celery 
at all ; it botanical name is valisneria. A correspondent 
of the Philadelphia "Ledger" has, moreover, cast doubt 
on the claim that it is the valisneria grass that so agree- 
ably flavors these birds and turtles. He found the 
ducks feeding greedily on the seeds of a species of 
pondweed, pota??iogeto?2 pectinatus. Tasting these 
seeds he found a distinct flavor of celery and became 
convinced that it was this and not the valisneria that 
gave the bird its peculiar flavor. The point ought to be 
settled by scientific experts, for if this sportsman is cor- 
rect in his surmise, the efforts that are being made to 
breed and multiply these ducks need not be confined to 
Chesapeake Bay, as that pondweed is also abundant 
along the big lakes which separate us from Canada. 

Why should not farmers cultivate this weed in ponds 
and improve the flavor of the ordinary domestic duck? 
The flavor imparted by the 'potamogeton — or the 
valisneria — is so rich that when a canvasback is cooked 
it needs no dressing, not even salt. 

An American consul in Mexico calls attention to the 
fact that the rivers and lagoons of that country "liter- 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 551 

ally swarm with turtles." "The wastes of water 
hyacinth are simply alive with them." These turtles, 
he says, are fat and fine of flesh and under careful 
handling would give a good return to the man who un- 
dertakes to ship them to the United States. "There is 
a small swamp turtle called the 'pochitoque,' which is 
of extremely fine flesh and flavor. It is found in great 
numbers in the swamps and lands that are annually 
overflowed in the State of Tobasco and is very similar 
and quite equal to the famous diamondback turtle. 
This also could be readily shipped to northern markets. 
It is not quite so abundant as the river turtle, but would 
find ready sale at fancy prices in view of the diminish- 
ing supply of the diamondback." 

In these days, when there is so much complaint about 
all trades and occupations being overcrowded, it is 
strange that no one should have the sagacity to see the 
commercial value of catering to the demand for fine 
turtles. Sea and pond farming of all kinds holds in it 
a greater promise of wealth than all the world's mines. 
Terrapin-growing will be one of the great industries of 
the future. 

It is worth noting that the old Roman epicures al- 
ready had their ponds for rearing fishes of superior 
flavor as well as aviaries for feeding flavor into birds. 
Nero's fish pond was discovered in 1913. Lucullus 
and Apicius had aviaries in which thrushes and black- 
birds were fattened for their tables on a paste made 



552 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

with figs, wheaten meal and aromatic grain. But such 
things were only for the very rich. What we want, 
and will get if we insist on it, are delicacies for the mil- 
lion. 

Most if not all animal foods can be improved by 
feeding desirable flavors into them. In Farmers' Bul- 
letin No. 200 the well-known poultry expert, T. F. 
McGrew, says that those who grow turkeys for a fancy 
market give them chestnuts and celeryseed during the 
last few weeks of fattening. Such feeding, he adds, 
imparts a flavor which makes the meat worth from nine 
to twelve cents a 'pound more than that of ordinary tur- 
keys. Yet "to grow the best is quite as easy and but 
little more expensive than to grow the poorer grades, 
and the profit gained is almost double." 

Could the commercial value of Flavor be more tri- 
umphantly demonstrated'? If the best costs but little 
more to produce than the poorest, why not cater to the 
million and make millions'? Why pay so much atten- 
tion to breed when, as another expert, S. M. Tracey, 
attests (Farmers' Bulletin No. 100), "management and 
feed are more important than breed" *? 

We have over a hundred varieties of chickens, but the 
best of them, improperly fed, are not so good to eat as 
inferior varieties that have had the right kind of feed 
during the last two or three weeks. That hogs, too, 
and other animals, need to have fancy feed only a few 
weeks to give them a flavor that commands a high price, 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 553 

is a matter of extreme importance from an economic 
point of view. 

Producers of meat — and other foods — would make 
much more money if, instead of offering the poorest 
that people will buy at the highest price, they supplied 
the best at the lowest price. Other merchants discov- 
ered this truth long ago. 

FARMERS, MIDDLEMEN, AND PARCEL POST. 

Thousands of families in Germany and France have 
been able for years to indulge in the luxury of getting 
daily pats of fresh butter, as well as new-laid eggs, 
freshly-killed chickens, and succulent vegetables straight 
from the farmer's garden, thanks to the parcel post- 
man. We, too, now have a parcel post and many look 
on it as a means of lowering the cost of living. It is 
that, no doubt; but it is more important from another 
point of view : it enables those who are fastidious as to 
what they eat to dodge the greengrocer who tries to foist 
on them farm produce which is not fresh and flavor- 
some; as well as poultrymen who refuse to heed the 
demand for fresh-killed fowls. 

New plans for bringing the consumer into direct con- 
tact with the producer are discussed in the press every 
other day, and there is a great deal of talk about "elim- 
inating the middlemen." Some of these undoubtedly 
ought to be ousted. There is no need of having four 
kinds of them — transportation agents, wholesalers, job- 



554 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

bers, and retailers. Some of these could be dispensed 
with, especially those who speculate in food products. 
To make war on retailers is an excusable proceeding, 
because of their frequent extortionate charges; yet we 
could not get along entirely without them. Not all of 
us can deal directly with the farmer, and those of us 
who do so are sure to find some day that he has sold his 
last turkey or his last head of lettuce — and then we 
have to fall back on the grocer or the butcher. With- 
out the latter, where would we get some of our meats'? 
If he is honest and knows his business, as he usually is 
and does, he is a specialist in the judging, handling, and 
cutting of meats. For this knowledge, and for the 
opportunity he gives us to buy any kind of meat we 
want at any time, he deserves to be paid, and well 
paid. 

The chief trouble about the retail middlemen is that 
there are too many of them. They declare that there 
are more failures in their trade than in any other, and 
no wonder. In the fierce struggle for existence they 
resort to all sorts of tricks to deceive customers — an evil 
of which enough has been said in these pages. 

If one-half of these retailers could be transferred to 
the country, to become growers of food instead of dis- 
tributors, there would be few failures and the cost of 
living would be reduced. There is no doubt whatever 
that the ever-rising price of foodstuffs is due chiefly to 
the alarming increase in the number of consumers, with 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 555 

a corresponding decrease in the number of producers. 

Particularly unfortunate is the disinclination of 
farmers to raise vegetables and small fruits for the mar- 
ket, or even for their own tables in many cases. 
"Western Canada," we read, "presents the peculiar 
anomaly of a wonderfully productive agricultural coun- 
try importing most of its food products." Special 
efforts were made during 1911 "to awaken the farmers 
to the value of mixed farming," but without much suc- 
cess. 

The same trouble exists in the United States, even in 
regions where the soil is less adapted for the growing of 
wheat by the mile than in Western Canada. Yet it 
has been proved again and again that much more money 
can be made by intensive methods on small farms 
than by growing grain on a large scale. It was this 
discovery that led to the decrease in the acreage of 
wheat grown in California and Oregon. 

"I have made a careful study of the conditions of 
agriculture in the Santa Clara, San Jose and Sacra- 
mento valleys, and I am irresistibly led to the conclu- 
sion that the great ranches must be broken up into small 
holdings before permanent prosperity can come to the 
farmers of the Pacific Coast," remarks Professor Isaac 
Roberts, Dean of the College of Agriculture, Cornell 
University, in an admirable little book published by 
the Orang Judd Company. It is entitled "Ten Acres 
Enough," and is just the book for those who feel in- 



556 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

clined to leave the overcrowded cities and lead a busy 
but prosperous life in the country. 

To realize what could be done to increase this coun- 
try's natural resources, read Professor F. H. King's 




Chinese Canal 

article in the "National Geographic Magazine" for Oc- 
tober, 1912, describing China's wonderful system of 
canals for transportation, drainage, irrigation, and 
fertilization, with the aid of which a population of 
400,000,000, tilling a region not a third as large as the 
United States, has subsisted for thousands of years. 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF FLAVOR 557 

We need not go as far as China, however, for a good 
example. The market gardens of Paris, to which ref- 
erence was made in Chapter VII, convincingly prove 
the commercial wisdom of intensive farming and of 
providing city folk with the tenderest and most flavor- 
some vegetables, berries, and fruits. We have too 
much "long-distance food" (canned or frozen) ; what 
we want is short-distance produce. 

Paris is the model for us; it enjoys what Professor 
Ferrero, in Le Figaro, has rightly called the ideal con- 
dition, being a city fed by fresh supplies from the ad- 
jacent country. Our aim should be to make each of 
our large cities a "hub" connected by thousands of 
spokes with suburban market gardens. 

In these gardens women as well as men can find 
emplo)onent; it has been claimed that their careful 
truck farming in garden and field shows better results 
than the work of men. 

Short-distance farming increases profits by decreas- 
ing transportation charges. A vivid illustration of 
future possibilities is given by an expert in these 
words: "Long Island is about the size of Holland. 
Its population is about the same. The produce taken 
out of the soil in Holland is twenty-one times that 
which is taken from the soil of Long Island. If Long 
Island were brought under proper cultivation it alone 
would produce the larger part of the vegetable prod- 
ucts required by the six millions of people in New 



558 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

York City and vicinity." The retail middleman and 
the parcel post would in that case suffice. 

At present the big profits in the food business go 
chiefly to the gambling middlemen — the jobbers. 
This must be changed. Possibly the prices will not be- 
come lower; but if the method just suggested is carried 
out, the quality (flavor) of the food we eat will be 
vastly improved and the profits will go to those who 
deserve them — the market gardeners. Let us do all we 
can to make their work as alluring and profitable as 
possible in order to greatly increase their numbers. 
To the lowering of the cost of food we ourselves 
can largely attend by stopping our sinful waste and 
taking to heart the methods taught in the preceding 
pages of economizing in our food without lowering its 
nutritive value or diminishing its pleasurableness. 




^^kJ*i*l«^if 



£*mjm 




ommm 



XIII 
GASTRONOMIC VALUE OF ODORS 

SWEET, SOUR, SALT, AND BITTER. 

N the London "Zoo" one day, as we 
were nearing the bear den, we heard the 
most heartrending cries on the part of 
one of its denizens. It sounded as if 
some bruin were being murdered or 
vivisected. In reality, the wails and 
tears were all due to the fact that one 
of the animals "wanted more" — more of the jam 
which an attendant was distributing to his charges in 
turn by the spoonful. That bear had a particularly 
"sweet tooth" ; but is not bruin proverbial for his love 
of wild honey 1 ? It is a casus belli with many a swarm 
of bees. 

If you wish to make a horse love you, let him take 
cubes of sugar from the palm of your hand. As for 

559 




560 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

dogs, they are supposed to be about as carnivorous as 
carnivorous can be ; yet I have heard of a dog who, for 
months, daily brought a basket of meat from the vil- 
lage butcher and never touched it; but one morning 
some horehound candy was put in the basket and that 
was too much for his integrity; he stopped on the way 
and ate it all up. I felt inclined to doubt that story 
until I found that Laddie, my own beautiful collie, 
invariably was much more eager for sugar than for 
meat (with the possible exception of imported Lyons 
sausage). Candy and sweetened cream are his ideas of 
ambrosia and nectar. 

To make friends with cows and sheep you need salt. 
With a few handfuls of it in your pocket you can soon 
make them leave the richest grass and come crowding 
around you when you take your daily walk in the fields. 
We ourselves crave salt in food, but we do not lick it 
eagerly as some domestic as well as wild animals do. 
In Central Africa, however, where it is a luxury hard to 
get, men and women devour it with the same zest that 
our youngsters show for candy. 

So far as I know, no animal likes sour things; plain 
water would be invariably preferred to lemonade. 
Cows and pigs, to be sure, eagerly eat apples, and other 
fruits, and so do horses ; they eat them though they be 
sour; but if you give them a whole bushel, they pick 
out the sweet ones first. 

The liking for sour things is a human attribute. 



GASTRONOMIC VALUE OF ODORS 561 

School children are often more eager for a pickle than 
for a stick of candy; and adults as well as the young 
ones enjoy tart or sub-acid fruits of all kinds. What 
could be better than a pie or a tart made of green goose- 
berries or sour currants'? I would give all the con- 
fectionery and sweet cakes in the world for a tree 
of sour cherries. Of the delights of sour salads 
I wrote at length in the chapter on French suprem- 
acy. 

Bitter herbs are eaten sometimes by browsing an- 
imals, but I doubt if they would select them by choice. 
The liking for bitter foods and drinks is not only a 
human attribute; it is a specifically epicurean trait. 
How very much better Scotch marmalade made of bit- 
ter oranges is than marmalade made of ordinary 
oranges! Slightly bitter also is the best pomelo. 
Bitter almond is a favorite flavoring for cakes and can- 
dies. The best of all salads, escarole and the endive 
tribe in general, are bitter. Bottled "bitters" are 
widely used as appetizers. 

Physicians of all periods have agreed that bitter sub- 
stances increase the appetite. Professor Pawlow con- 
siders them the strongest of all stimulants to a jaded 
palate. He inclines to the belief that "bitters not only 
act directly on the gustatory nerves in the mouth, but 
that they also act on the mucous membrane of the 
stomach in such a way that sensations are generated 
which contribute to the passionate craving for food." 



562 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

A COMEDY OF ERRORS. 

While thus admitting the gastronomic and thera- 
peutic value of bitters, I must nevertheless call atten- 
tion to the fact that their allurements, as mere sensa- 
tions of taste, are not considerable. We would not 
care so much for Scotch marmalade as we do were it not 
for the pungent fragrance of the Seville orange which 
accompanies its bitter taste; or for the bitter grapefruit 
were it not so highly perfumed. Hops are valued for 
their tonic bitter but still more for their agreeable odor, 
without which beer, for instance, is a flat failure. We 
never eat quinine for fun, because it has no fragrance to 
modify its intense bitter; nor, for the same reason, 
would we use strychnine as a condiment even though it 
were as harmless as sugar. 

Now, what is true of bitter, is true also of all other 
sensations of taste — salt, sour, and sweet. Considered 
as mere sensations of taste they have no great gastro- 
nomic value — not great at any rate when compared 
with the sensations of smell. On this point I need not 
dwell, as I discussed it briefly in Chapter II under the 
headings of "An Amazing Blunder" and "A New 
Psychology of Eating," in which I pointed out that 
there is only one unvarying kind of sour and one un- 
varying kind of sweet and that all the varied and 
countless pleasures of the table are due chiefly to the 
sense of smell which enables us to enjoy them if we 



GASTRONOMIC VALUE OF ODORS 563 

breathe out through the nose while munching our food. 

To this day it seems almost incredible that it should 
have remained for me to make this extremely important 
discovery; yet all my researches have failed to bring 
to light a psychologist who anticipated me. My sur- 
prise abated somewhat at the time when the theory was 
first announced that mosquitoes are responsible for 
malaria. Having just read Humboldt's travels in 
South America and Stanley's "Darkest Africa," I re- 
membered that both of these writers had come within 
an inch of the truth, yet missed it completely. The 
case of Stanley is really comic. Emin Pasha had in- 
formed him that he "always took a mosquito curtain 
with him, as he believed that it was an excellent pro- 
tector against miasmatic exhalations of the night." 
Now, how in the world could these "miasmatic exhala- 
tions" (which were held responsible for malaria) 
have been kept out by a mosquito net when, as 
Stanlev does not fail to note, the same air "enters 
by the doors of the house and under the flaps and 
through ventilators to poison the inmates'"? 

Just as in this case the fixed idea that bad air 
(malaria) must be responsible for the disease obscured 
the truth, so the undeserved homage bestowed on the 
sense of taste blinded those who wrote on this subject, 
including Brillat-Savarin. 

In his "Physiology of Taste" he has a chapter on the 
senses in which he beats around the bush in the most 



564 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

ridiculous way. He knew that if you have a cold, or 
hold your nose while eating, "no flavor is perceived in 
an)fthing that is swallowed" ; yet from this he inferred 
that "all sense of taste is obliterated," although the 
simplest experiment would have shown him that a cold 
does not affect the sensations of sweet, sour, salt, bit- 
ter, alkaline, or metallic in the least; and after several 
pages of argumentation he comes to the absurd conclu- 
sion that "there is no complete perception of taste 
unless the sense of smell have a share in the sensation," 
and that, in fact, "smell and taste form only one sense, 
having the mouth as laboratory with the nose for fire- 
place or chimney." You might as well say that sight 
and hearing form only one sense. 

Dr. Charles Henry Piesse, member of the Royal Col- 
lege of Surgeons, is another author who came within 
half an inch of the truth, yet missed it. He wrote a 
little volume, "Olfactics and the Physical Senses," 
which is full of interesting facts and suggestions. 
Two citations, the first from "The Art of Perfumery," 
written by Dr. Piesse's father, the second from "Olfac- 
tics," will show "how warm" these two men got in their 
search, as the children say in their play. 

To the unlearned nose all odors are alike ; but when tutored, 
either for pleasure or profit, no member of the body is more 
sensitive. Wine merchants, tea brokers, drug dealers, tobacco 
importers, and many others, have to go through a regular educa- 
tional nasal course. A hop merchant buries his nose in a pocket, 
takes a sniff, and then sets his price upon the bitter flower. 



GASTRONOMIC VALUE OF ODORS 565 

The odors have to be remembered, and it is noteworthy here 
to remark with what persistence odors do fix themselves upon 
the memory; and were it not for this remembrance of an odor, 
the merchants in the trades above indicated would soon be at 
fault. An experienced perfumer will have two hundred odors 
in his laboratory, and can distinguish every one by name. 

When the breath is held the most odorous substances may be 
spread in the interior of the nostrils without their perfume being 
perceived. This observation was first made by Galen. It 
has been frequently remarked that odors are smelt only during 
inspiration; the same air, when returned through the nostrils, 
always proving inodorous. But this is true only when the odor 
has been admitted from without by the nostrils, for when it is 
admitted by the mouth, as in combination with articles of nu- 
trition, it can be perceived during expiration through the nose. 

Yet this man, who thus came so near the truth, 
missed it as widely as all the others! Throughout 
his books he talks as if taste were "it." The num- 
ber of "different tastes, or flavors" is, "of course, un- 
limited," he says; whereas, let me say it once more, 
there are only six tastes: sweet, salt, sour, bitter, metal- 
lic and alkaline. Again, he remarks that "the im- 
portance of possessing a pure and cultivated sense of 
taste is very great in certain trades and professions, as, 
for instance, the occupation of a wine-taster, a tea- 
taster, a coffee-taster. These persons are all gourmets ; 
the word gourmet signifying a taster." Wrong, from 
beginning to end. Coffee, tea, and wine "tasters" — 
the men who sample these articles to adjudge their com- 
mercial value — are guided entirely by their Flavor, 



566 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

that is, their appeal to the sense of smell ; while epicures 
owe nine-tenths of their enjoyment of food to that 
sense and only one-tenth to the sense of taste. 

Even Professor Dr. Gustav Jager, the famous apostle 
of "all-wool for man's wear," missed the mark. He 
wrote a book, "Die Entdeckung der Seele," in which he 
tried to prove that smell is really the most important of 
our senses, the olfactory nerve being in fact the seat of 
the soul ! Yet this ardent advocate entirely failed to 
see the truth I have set forth in this book — the fact that 
to the sense of smell we owe most of the countless 
pleasures of the table, with all their important digestive 
and hygienic consequences. Just like all the other mis- 
guided writers on this subject, he speaks of differences 
in taste between lobster and crawfish, or between the 
eggs of hens, ducks, geese, and so on, although it is the 
nose and not the tongue that enables us to tell them 
apart. 

HOW FLAVOR DIFFERS FROM FRAGRANCE. 

Throughout this volume I have used the word Flavor 
as if it were virtually synonymous with odor, fragrance, 
aroma. Strictly speaking, it is not, for taste usually 
enters as an ingredient; but from a gastronomic point 
of view the taste is usually so subordinate that it is 
almost negligible. To say it once more, we hardly 
enjoy vinegar unless it is fragrant, and while we like 
the taste of sugar we gladly pay from five to thirty 



GASTRONOMIC VALUE OF ODORS 567 

times as much for it when it is flavored and sold as 
candy. 

In the great Oxford Dictionary two definitions of the 
word flavor are given. It means, in the best literary 
usage, either a smell, odor, aroma, pure and simple; 
or it means "the element in the taste of a substance 
which depends on the cooperation of the sense of 
smell." 

If asked for my own definition I should say that 
"flavor is the odor of a substance as perceived in breath- 
ing out through the nose while we are eating, and 
usually accompanied by a sweet, sour, salt, or bitter 
tasteT This distinguishes flavor from fragrance, 
which we perceive in breathing in through the nose ; as, 
the fragrance of a rose or a violet — and this is not ac- 
companied by a taste. 

A strawberry has both fragrance and flavor. Per- 
sons who cannot eat strawberries may still enjoy their 
• fragrance, which is subtler and more delicious than the 
flavor. We must try to overcome the foolish prejudice 
against "smelling at things" (apples, oranges, etc.) at 
table; for the fragrance of foods also stimulates the 
appetite and thus helps digestion. When quinces or 
"pomegranates" (melon gourds) are ripe I often carry 
one in my pocket, so that I may enjoy its exquisite and 
beneficial fragrance after meals. 

Cantaloupes, pineapples, pomelos (grapefruit), ripe 
peaches, and some apples and plums are fruits with a 



568 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

fragrance which is even more delicious than their flavor. 
In other cases — particularly cherries and pears — the 
flavor is much more important; and in some instances 
the fragrance is positively disagreeable while the flavor 
is exquisite. 

This is true of the durion. Dr. Paludanus informs 
us that "to those not used to it, it seems at first to smell 
like rotten onions, but immediately they have tasted it 
they prefer it to all other food." The great naturalist, 
Alfred Russell Wallace, says of it in his great work on 
the Malayan Archipelago that "the more you eat of it 
the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat 
durions is a rare sensation, worth a voyage to the East 
to experience." 

I remember reading in the London "Telegraph," 
many years ago, an editorial, presumably by Sir Edwin 
Arnold, entitled "The King Is Eating Durions." It 
described His Majesty as being so completely absorbed 
in this task that his subjects had orders, on penalty of 
death, not to disturb him even if war should suddenly 
be declared. The natives give it honorable titles, exalt 
it, make verses on it. Cannot our Bureau of Plant In- 
dustry acclimate this gastronomic marvel somewhere 
within hailing distance 4 ? 

Tobacco is one of those things the fragrance of which 
is more agreeable than the flavor. The time will come 
when smoking will be given up and tobacco simply 
burnt, like incense. That will make it harmless, al- 



GASTRONOMIC VALUE OF ODORS 569 

though it will still be as offensive to some as to others 
it is delightful. 

IMPORTANT FUNCTIONS OF THE NOSE. 

1. "The fate of innumerable girls has been decided 
by a slight upward or downward curvature of the 
nose," wrote Schopenhauer; and Pascal declared that 
if Cleopatra's nose had been but a trifle larger the 
whole political geography of this planet might have 
been different. Owing to the fact that the nasal organ 
occupies the most prominent part of the face, Professor 
Kollmann remarks that "the partial or complete loss of 
the nose causes a greater disfigurement than a much 
greater fault of configuration in any other part of the 
face." Of all our features the nose has always been 
considered the most aristocratic, as well as an impor- 
tant condition of beauty. 

2. No less important is the nose as a condition of 
beautiful speech and song. Jean de Reszke, the great- 
est tenor and vocal teacher of our time, goes so far as to 
say that "la grande question du chant devient une 
question du nez." Unless the stream of tone, when we 
speak or sing, goes through the nose it lacks beauty and 
resonance; yet with consistent stupidity we have be- 
stowed the word "nasal" on the sounds produced when 
the nose is not used as a resonator or "sounding board !" 
To fully comprehend the important musico-philolog- 
ical function of the nose in giving beauty and variety 



57Q FOOD AND FLAVOR 

to tones, read Chapter III of Prof. G. H. Meyer's 
"The Organs of Speech." 

3. The nose is a sort of funnel for warming the air 
before it enters the sensitive lungs. 

4. It is, furthermore, an apparatus for filtering the 
air on its way to the lungs, which is done with the aid 
of fine hairs and cilia in the nostrils. Persons who 
breathe through the mouth have at the age of thirty a 
gramme of dust in their lungs which they can never 
get rid of. Mouth-breathing is a cause of catarrh, of 
unrefreshing sleep, of snoring. Moreover, in the 
words of Dr. T. R. French, "the habit of breathing 
through the mouth interferes with general nutrition. 
The subjects of this habit are usually anemic, spare and 
dyspeptic." 

5. The nose is a sentinel, warning us not to tarry 
where the air is malodorous and dangerous to health. 

6. Lavender water, eau-de-Cologne, attar of roses, 
and other perfumes are, as everybody knows, effective 
in curing headaches and resting the tired mind. The 
"Scotsman" tells an interesting story of Sir William 
Temple's visit to the India House of Amsterdam where 
he and his companions were exalted by the tonic effect 
of the spices and aromas about them. John Evelyn 
proposed to make London the healthiest and happiest 
city in Christendom by planting all around it hedgerows 
of sweetbriar, rosemary, jasmine, etc. The feeling of 
relief which delights us when we leave the city and step 



GASTRONOMIC VALUE OF ODORS 571 

out of the railway car comes from the natural fragrance 
of the trees, herbs, and flowers. This fragrance makes 
us breathe deeply, and deep breathing is the greatest of 
all tonics, as well as a preventive of colds and consump- 
tion. A gardener has written of the "thrilling" fra- 
grance of sweet peas, and it is not too strong a word ; I 
myself have often been thrilled by their fragrance, or 
that of lilies, pinks, or hyacinths wafted across the gar- 
den like sweet concords of music. 

About ten million dollars a year is the amount spent 
in the United States on perfumery. The best perfumes 
are still, and always will be, the natural ones, made in 
the Riviera and Roumania. Grasse, in southern 
France, alone uses 1,200 tons of roses, 200 tons of jas- 
mine blossoms, and nearly as many tons of violets every 
year. Of chemical imitations of the natural perfumes 
Germany produces annually about $12,000,000 worth. 
When we try to guess the amount of perfumery the 
world needs for toilet powders, sachets, dentifrices, and 
soaps, we realize what an important part the nose plays 
in commerce. The nation's candy bill exceeds a hun- 
dred million dollars a year; and candy is perfumed 
sugar. The value of the world's annual tobacco crop 
is about $200,000,000, and the appeal of tobacco is, 
of course, chiefly to the nose. Some dolt wrote, many 
years ago, that if you blindfold a smoker he cannot 
tell the difference between good and bad tobacco. He 
was evidently anosmic — one of a considerable number 



572 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

of persons whose sense of smell is not developed. To 
normal smokers the value of a cigar lies in its fragrance, 
and it is their superior fragrance that makes the product 
of Cuba the most costly of all cigars. 

7. The seventh and most important function of the 
nose is the one which — mirabile dictu — it remained for 
me to discover — the function of perceiving and enjoy- 
ing the countless varieties of flavor that are developed 
in the food we eat. To what I have already said in 
proof of this assertion let me add that the nerves of 
taste are affected by liquids, and those of smell by gases ; 
and the flavored air we breathe out while eating is cer- 
tainly not liquid! 

EDUCATING THE SENSE OF SMELL. 

Dr. Piesse errs in saying that the sense of taste can 
and should be educated. It needs no educating; sweet 
is distinguished from sour, salt and bitter from the 
earliest infancy, and that is all there is to it. 

The sense of smell, on the other hand, can and 
should be educated systematically. Kant's reason for 
saying that it is not worth cultivating was that, in pop- 
ulous regions, particularly, there are more disagreeable 
than agreeable odors. He might as well have advised 
against educating the eyes and the ears because in our 
cities there are more offensive sights and sounds than 
agreeable ones. An educated sense of smell objects to 
malodorous surroundings and therefore prompts sani- 



GASTRONOMIC VALUE OF ODORS 573 

tary reforms. Much has been done in this direction 
since the days of Kant. The next reform will be to 
absolutely demand clean, sweet air in schools, theaters, 
and concert halls. 

The principal reason for educating the sense of smell 
is to protect us against the danger of eating spoiled 
food, and to enable us thoroughly to enjoy the count- 
less pleasures of the table — dwelt on in this book — on 
which a good appetite depends. The significance of 
this was understood by Shakespeare when he wrote: 

Now good digestion wait on appetite 
And health on both. 

Ants are the most intelligent of all insects. Their 
antennae are organs of smell and so much is their world 
a world of odors that, as Sir John Lubbock ascertained, 
an ant accidentally born without antennae seemed to be 
as helpless as a blind person among ourselves. Many 
mammals are greatly dependent on this sense, and there 
was a time when a large part of the human brain was 
assigned to its perceptions. More and more the im- 
pressions of sight gained on it. The process has gone 
too far; we must once more strengthen and develop our 
olfactory nerves and encourage the expansion of the 
olfactory region in the brain. 

The way to do it has been dwelt on repeatedly in the 
preceding pages. I have taught several persons who 
were partly anosmic to learn after a short time to dis- 



574 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

tinguish between different foods that had previously 
"tasted" alike to them; they simply followed my ad- 
vice of breathing out slowly and consciously through 
the nose while eating. Keep those two words — partic- 
ularly consciously — in mind. Never eat in an absent- 
minded way; and if you are a host or a hostess, please 
do not tell your guest interesting stories at the moment 
when he is trying to do justice to the good things you 
have placed before him ! 

Children should be told every time they bolt their 
food or candy that the pleasure of eating lies not in the 
swallowing of it, but in keeping it in the mouth as long 
as possible and breathing out through the nose. That 
will make epicures of them, able to tell good food from 
bad and thus escape many an illness. 

How acute the sense of smell can be made is shown 
by the fact that it will perceive and distinguish the 
1,300,000th part of a grain of attar of roses. It is said 
that the inmates of an asylum for the blind, whose 
other senses are sharpened by the loss of sight, can tell 
on entering a dining-room what viands are on the table. 

De gustibus non est disputandum. True; we are all 
entitled to our likes and dislikes; but many "differences 
of taste" are simply differences in development and 
acuteness of the sense of smell. To those in whom this 
sense is blunted, sweet (unsalted) butter may seem 
insipid; but should they maintain that it is insipid? 

To Turner a man once said he could not see in nature 



GASTRONOMIC VALUE OF ODORS 575 

such colors as he used on his canvases. The great 
painter promptly replied: "Don't you wish you 
could V 

Epicures are usually born with a keen sense of smell. 
Once, in crossing a bleak pass in the Alps, I said to my 
companion: "I smell an orchid!" After considerable 
search we found it — a tiny blossom — some ten feet 
from the road. That orchid explains why I have writ- 
ten this book. 

COFFEE, TEA, AND TEMPERANCE. 

A general educating of the sense of smell may not 
solve the temperance problem, but it will be a great 
help. 

It would be a blessing if every liquor saloon in the 
country could be closed. Most of the whiskey and 
other strong drink sold — at an enormous profit — in 
these places is adulterated in ways which often make it 
infinitely more harmful than the pure article would be, 
under any circumstances. But the unadulterated is an 
evil, too, because it is usually drunk in excess. 

It has been said of the native African that he wants 
something with a "bite" in it and is not satisfied with 
a drink that does not go down his throat "like a torch- 
light procession." But the African is not alone in this 
peculiarity. There are many thousands of whites who 
want their whiskey or rum "fiery" above all things; 
and they want it that way because their sense of smell 



576 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

is not educated to appreciate the higher qualities of 
liquors — their fragrance, or "bouquet." 

"It is a fact," as a well-known mixer of fancy drinks 
once remarked, "that there are very few good judges of 
liquor. It is a very old chestnut to set out whiskey 
when brandy has been called for, and not one in ten 
can tell the difference. There are few people who can 
distinguish between high and low priced wines." 

The difference between the best wines and the poor- 
est lies chiefly in this, that the best have a maximum of 
bouquet and a minimum of alcohol. The bouquet is 
exhilarating, like the alcohol, yet is perfectly harmless. 
On the bouquet depends the commercial as well as the 
gastronomic value of wines almost entirely. Now, 
while some persons who are addicted to strong drink 
may be hopeless cases, there are thousands who might 
be saved by teaching them that by educating their sense 
of smell to the appreciation of bouquet they can get 
infinitely more pleasure from a refined sort of in- 
dulgence than from the bestial alcoholic intoxication 
which is followed by nausea, headache, by nights and 
days of misery, by poverty and deadly diseases. 

Drunkenness and gluttony are no longer respectable, 
or even semi-respectable, and further progress in the 
same direction may be hoped for through efforts at 
reform along the lines I have indicated. A true epi- 
cure would no more dull the edge of his appetite for 
future pleasures of the table by over-indulgence in food 



GASTRONOMIC VALUE OF ODORS 577 

or drink than a barber would think of whittling kin- 
dling wood with his razor. 

Whiskey drinkers are far from being the only topers. 
There are also a great many tea and coffee topers. A 
writer in the "Journal of the American Medical Associ- 
ation" describes the case of a woman, a member of the 
Temperance Union in her town, who was "a coffee 
drunkard," having been living for months on little be- 
side black coffee, till she was a wreck. Such cases are 
common; they have led to the manufacture on a large 
scale of diverse substitutes for coffee, some of which are 
not at all bad if taken with sugar and cream. 

Some relief is also coming through the increased de- 
mand for cocoa, which has the advantage over tea and 
coffee of being a real food. In the period from 1888 to 
1911 imports of cocoa into the United States increased 
from 6,600,000 pounds to 134,000,000, while those of 
coffee increased only from 404,000,000 to 800,000,000 
pounds, and those of tea from 68,000,000 to 104,- 
000,000 pounds. 

That tea is the worst enemy of the Irish peasantry 
was the burden of a blue book issued a few years ago 
by the Inspectors of Irish schools. "The tea is so pre- 
pared for use that the liquid, when drunk, has the prop- 
erties of a slow poison. The teapot stewing on the 
hearth all day long is kept literally on tap; the mem- 
bers of the family, young as well as old, resorting to it 
at discretion." 



578 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

It is not only among the peasantry and the city slums 
that improperly made tea does its deadly work. 




In If ! 






3% 

I A 1 v 




Javanese Tea-picker and Porter 

Among the well-to-do, in all countries, it is far from 
being in all cases, as it is supposed to be, "the cup which 
cheers but not inebriates." The strong coffee-colored 
four-o'clock tea served in English and American homes 



GASTRONOMIC VALUE OF ODORS 579 

is a gastronomic atrocity; it is bad for heart, nerves, and 
stomach. In the United States, in nine cases out of 
ten, the tea served is an inky fluid, bitter as gall, and 
devoid of fragrance. 

When our Government forbade the importation of 
artificially colored teas, Consul West wrote from Japan 
that the planters were induced by this measure to 
"make greater efforts in future to improve the -flavor 
rather than the color and the appearance" of the tea. 

The Flavor is, indeed, the one thing to be considered 
in raising high-class tea; also, in preparing it. The art 
of brewing a good cup of tea consists in making it in 
such a way as to secure a maximum of fragrance and a 
minimum of the tannin, which is bad for the digestion, 
and the theine, which is a nerve poison. The rules for 
making tea may be found in any good cook book. The 
main points are that the water should never remain on 
the leaves more than from three to five minutes, and 
that the teapot should be thoroughly heated because it 
is only at the boiling point that some of the volatile 
properties of the leaves, on which the aroma depends, 
can be properly extracted. A little sugar to sweeten 
it is permissible; it does not alter the flavor. Milk or 
cream do; wherefore tea-drinkers who are epicures and 
like to enjoy the unique fragrance of different kinds of 
tea, reject them. 

The commercial and gastronomic value of coffee is 
determined by the amount of the aromatic volatile oil 



580 FOOD AND FLAVOR 

which develops in the process of roasting. This fra- 
grant oil is called caffeone. But coffee also has another 
active principle, an alkaloid called caffeine, which has 
a strong effect on the vascular and nervous systems and 
is used as a medicine. Now, the art of making good 
coffee consists in eliminating, as far as possible, the 
effects of the caffeine while developing those of the 
caffeone. To the caffeine are due the wakefulness and 
digestive disturbances caused by coffee; while the fla- 
vorsome caffeone produces the harmless exhilarating 
effects. 

Coffee-roasting is a science which every housewife 
should study and practise; its neglect accounts for the 
fact that one so seldom gets a fragrant cup of coffee. 
The grinding should be done just before the coffee is 
prepared, and it should be drunk at once. Families 
having plenty of storage room should buy coffee by 
wholesale as it improves with age and yields a more 
mellow beverage. Dealers do not favor this storing 
because the beans lose weight thereby. Wash the 
beans before roasting them, and you will have the 
material for brewing a good cup of coffee. 

An effort is being made in Europe to substitute for 
coffee and tea a beverage which, while having their re- 
freshing effect, contains so small a proportion of the 
alkaloid substance as to be comparatively harmless, 
namely mate. In Argentina the use of the mate leaf 
has increased enormously in recent years, the annual 



GASTRONOMIC VALUE OF ODORS 581 

consumption averaging nearly twenty pounds per per- 
son, and in Paraguay it is even as high as twenty-nine 
pounds per inhabitant. North Americans and Euro- 
peans have taken to it much more slowly, owing, it is 
said, to the crude way of preparing the leaves — the dry- 
ing of them over an open fire, which gives them a 
smoky flavor. But it is claimed that superior methods 
of preparation will make mate a powerful rival of cof- 
fee and tea, all the more as it is much cheaper. A 
pound of it makes five times as many cups as a pound 
of coffee; and, unlike tea leaves, the mate leaves can be 
used for a second infusion without impairment of the 
quality. 

In beverages, as in foods, Flavor is the decisive fac- 
tor. The natural flavor of mate seems to be as agree- 
able as that of tea or coffee, but it is apt to be marred 
by the suggestion of smoke just referred to. If this 
can be eliminated, and if it is true that mate, though 
containing less caffeine than either tea or coffee, is 
even more stimulating and sustaining, then "Para- 
guay tea" seems destined to be the domestic beverage 
of the future. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Adulterated and denatured 
foods, 14-39, 40, 66-116, 
351, 441, 528. 

Alaskan berries, 546. 

Alcoholic drinks, 575. 

Alligator pears, 240. 

Allyn, L. B., 528. 

America, Gastronomic: spe- 
cialties, 3 ; traditions, 4 ; 
missionaries, 5 ; most impor- 
tant problem, 42; progress, 
181; cooking in schools, 
182; electric, on battleships, 
201; fat in diet, 224; in 
Paris, 258; sausages, 348; 
fruit, 432; breakfasts, 440; 
chapter XI ; corn, sweet, 
and corn bread, 451; grid- 
dle cakes and maple syrup, 
459; pies, 466; cranberries, 
471; turkeys and game, 
473; game, 478; seafood, 
480; New York lunch bill 
of fare, 484; fishes, 489; 
vegetables gaining ground, 
490; fruit eaters paradise, 
496; Burbank's new fruits 
and vegetables, 509. 

America, Ungastronomie : 3- 
39 ; causes, 1 1 ; quick-lunch, 
61; denatured food, 66-116; 
cold-storage poultry, 69 ; 



oysters spoiled, 86; dyed 
meats and fish, 103 ; butter, 
105 ; unwilling to take pains, 
107 ; vegetables, badly 
cooked, 124; use of condi- 
ments, 143 ; indifference to 
superior cooking, 164; 
wasted food and flavors, 
211; poultry for eggs only, 
223 ; dissonant salads, 243 ; 
bad influence on Paris, 259 ; 
bread, 288; cheese, 304; 
frozen fish, 362; slaughter 
of game, 366; prejudice 
against mutton, 408; bacon, 
410. 

Appendicitis, 51. 

Appetite, and gastric juice, 
55, 99; for girls, 56, 179; 
cheese as appetizer, 303 ; 
Shakespeare on, 573. 

Apples, 468, 496, 518, 538. 

Artichokes, French, 238. 

Austria, 374, 375, 381 (see 
Germany). 



B 



Bacon, 66, 97, 232, 409, 549. 
Bailey, L. H., 491, 498, 501, 

510. 
Bakers, 291, 373. 
Bakewell, R. G., 400. 
Baltimore, 549. 



585 



586 



INDEX 



Bananas, 433, 539. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, 468. 

Beef: embalmed, 15; extracts, 
123; roast, 130; fresh or 
chilled vs. frozen, 401. 

Beer and Brewers, 35. 

Benzoate of soda, 31. 

Berlin, 89, 342, 356, 359, 37*, 
381. 

Berries, 435, 516, 546. 

Beverages, 575-581. 

Billingsgate fish market, 424. 

Birds, in Italy, 334 (see 
game). 

Bismark, 351. 

Bitter (see taste). 

Boar, wild, 82. 

Bones, for soup, 214. 

Borax, 25. 

Boston, 193, 472, 491. 

Boys as cooks, 173. 

Brains, fried, 318, 421. 

Bread: Boston brown, 49; 
American, 67, 287 ; salt in, 
142; French, 285; crust vs. 
crumb, 286; toasted, 290; 
corn, 457; the diabolical 
degerminator, 459 ; Ger- 
man and Austrian, 373. 

Bresse, poulet de, 69, 220. 

Brillat-Savarin, 61, 219, 343, 

474, 563. 

Broiling, 129. 

Bryce, A., 290. 

Buckwheat cakes, 460. 

Burbank, Luther, on educat- 
ing escarole, 235 ; arti- 
chokes, 239 ; frost-proof 
apple blossoms, 493 ; genius 
and advantages, 509 ; men- 
tal pattern, 511; new 
fruits and improved vege- 



tables, 512-521; corn, 514; 
nuts, 517; grapes, 518; 
enemies, 518; cactus, 519; 
garden, 520; commercial 
value of flavor, 522; com- 
bines flavor with beauty, 
527; imparting a pineap- 
ple flavor, 534. 
Burpee, W. A., 233, 234, 

455- 
Butter: American, 105; 
sweet vs. salt, 112; how 
the best is made, 292 ; 
sweet vs. sour cream, 294, 
387; fishy flavor in, 298; 
versus mutton fat, 405 ; arti- 
ficially colored, 525 ; spoiled 
by strong feed, 548. 



Cactus, thornless, 519. 

California, 432, 513, 515, 
53i, 536, 555- 

Campbell, Dr. H., 46, 49, 287 

Canada, 410, 481, 555. 

Candy, 21, 33, 62, 544. 

Careme, 160 163, 218, 378. 

Casserole cooking, 148-9 

Cassidy, H. P., 33, 38, 67. 

Caviare, 257, 502. 

Celery, 494. 

Cereals, 141, 262. 

Chafing dish cooking, 150. 

Cheese: with salad, 243; as 
an appetizer, 303 ; Ameri- 
can, 304; various European 
countries, 305 ; French, 
306; cooked in place of 
meat, 328; German, Swiss 
and Dutch, 385 ; English, 
446. 



INDEX 



587 



Cherries, 435. 

Chicago, 172, 182, 200, 202, 
362. 

Chickens (see poultry). 

Child, Theodore, 147, 199. 

China, intensive farming, 556. 

City-bred people, easily fooled, 
526. 

Clark, Mrs. Champ, 168. 

Cocoa, 577. 

Codfish, flavor of, 489. 

Coffee, 575. 

Cold storage, 69, 72, 83-86, 
538. 

Commercial Value of Flavor: 
smoked hams and bacon, 
104, 414; sweet butter, 
113, 302; profitable chick- 
ens, 220; sausages, 349; 
fish ponds, 360; best cheese 
the most profitable, 387, 
393 ; consumers and chilled 
meat, 402 ; demand for good 
poultry, 423; cakes, 443; 
maple syrup, 463; turkeys, 
476; Burbank on, 522; 
Chapter XII ; flavor decides 
permanence, 522; natural 
butter, 525 where pure food 
pays best, 529 ; opportunities 
in pineapples, 532; tree-rip- 
ened peaches, 536 ; fortunes 
from bananas and oranges, 
539; melons and honey, 
542 ; women and local 
flavor, 545 ; feeding flavor 
into food, 546; doubling 
farmyard profits, 552. 

Condiments, 28, 124, 140, 
142, 354, 448, 469. 

Cook books 146. 

Cooking: "plain," 11; science 



of savory, 117; flavor as 
guiding principle, 119; main 
object of, 121; soup, 122; 
boiling, 122; vegetables, 
125; steaming, 129; broil- 
ing, 129; roasting, 130; 
gravy, 130; frying, 132; 
combining meat and vege- 
table flavors, 134; stewing, 
134; cook books, 146; pa- 
per-bag, 148; casserole, 
149; a noble art, 152; way 
to a man's heart, 153; vs. 
divorce, 155 ; factory and 
shop girls, 156; royalty in 
the kitchen, 158; American 
society women as cooks, 
168; does it pay? 169, 173; 
future of, 171; school girls 
like it, 171; by boys and 
soldiers, 173; traveling 
schools, 176; in English 
schools, 177; in American, 
181; fascination of, 184; 
lessons and the farm, 186; 
economics, 190; fireless 
cookers, 191 ; community 
kitchens, 197; electric, 200; 
an exact science, 204. 

Cooks: social caste of, 154; 
improved by praise, 165; 
earn more than teachers, 
doctors, and clergymen, 
169; boys and soldiers as, 
173; divine beings, 310. 

Copenhagen, 355. 

Corn, sweet, and corn bread, 
451 (see bread) ; Bur- 
bank's improved, 514. 

Covent Garden market, 429. 

Crab-apples, 500. 

Cranberries, 371, 471. 



^88 



INDEX 



Crawfish, 371, 483. 

Cream, sweet or sour, for 

butter, 294, 387; in cheese, 

388. 

D 

Darwin, 61, 191. 
Dates, 506. 

Dealers, pennywise, 390, 532. 
Deer, 366; farming, 479. 
Delicatessen stores, 341. 
Denatured foods, 66-116. 
Denmark, 1 76. 
De Reszke, Jean, 569. 
Dickens, 4. 
Dish-washing, 157. 
Domestic science, in schools, 
181; and farm work, 186. 
Ducks, canvasback, 549. 
Dumas, A., 212, 214. 
Drunkenness, 576. 
Dutch cheese, 390. 

E 

Eating: a new psychology of, 
61 ; teaching the art of, in 
schools, 187; talking about, 
340; with the eyes, 524. 

Eggs, 547, 566. 

Electric cooking, 200. 

Eliot, C. W., 42. 

Ellwanger, 146, 216, 373. 

England: inns and steamers, 
4; sauces and meats, 145," 
cook books, 147; royalty in 
the kitchen, 158; cooking 
lessons for men, 1 73 ; cook- 
ing in schools, 177; electric 
cooking, 201 ; need of va- 
riety, 207 ; wastefulness, 
211; poultry, 221; market 
gardens, 279 ; mushrooms, 



281; sardines, 315; beef 
dripping, 318; monotony 
in diet, 395 ; gluttony, 397 ; 
roast beef, 399; cattle- 
breeders, 400 ; Southdown 
mutton, 403; Wiltshire ba- 
con, 409 ; grouse, 42 1 ; mar- 
kets, 423, 429; fish and oys- 
ters, 423; vegetables, 430; 
fruit, 432; berries, 435; 
marmalades, jams, 437; 
breakfasts, 440 ; special 
dishes, 442; plum pudding, 
443 ; cheese, 446 ; abuse of 
condiments, 448; pie, 466; 
tea, 577. 

Epicurism, 53, 189, 576. 

Escarole, 232. 

Eyes, eating with the, 524. 



Factory and shop girls, 156, 
183. 

Fairchild, D., 68, 506. 

Farmers, hints for (see gov- 
ernmental gastronomy, and 
commercial value of flavor). 

Farming, intensive will solve 
food problem, 553-8. 

Fat, importance of, in diet, 
224; how digested, 225. 

Fireless cookers, 151, 172, 
191. 

Fish : dyed, 66 ; storage, 67 ; 
smoked, 103, 344, 427; in 
Paris market, 275 ; fried, in 
Italy, 316; live, brought to 
kitchen, 355 ; ponds, in Ger- 
many, 360; frozen, 361; in 
London market, 423 ; sole, 
426; American, 489. 



INDEX 



589 



Flavor: superlative importance 
of, 40-64; helps the stom- 
ach, 53 ; creates an appetite, 
56; why we eat chicken, 
79; in butter, 105; guid- 
ing principle in cooking, 
119; chief value of veg- 
etables, 124; extending the 
flavor of meat, 134; from 
cheap cuts of meat, 137; 
condiments, 143; art of 
varying, 153; test, vs. veg- 
etarianism, 142; fat, a 
source of, 388 ; in British 
meat, 399 ; little, in frozen 
meat, 402, or fish, 360; 
in codfish, 489, local, 499; 
decides value, 522 ; Bur- 
bank on, 522; what we 
spend most money on, 524; 
in nuts, 526; farmers and 
city greenhorns, 526; va- 
riety in, 535; fruit and cold 
storage, 539; in bananas 
and oranges, 540; in melons 
and honey, 543 ; extracts, 
544; value of local, 545; 
feeding it into food, 546; 
how it differs from frag- 
rance, 566 ; an aid to tem- 
perance, 575; "bouquet," 

576. 

Fletcher and Fletcherizing, 
11-53, 63, 227. 

Flour, 320, 373. 

Food and Drugs Act, 31. 

Food problem solved by in- 
tensive farming, 554-8. 

Food, soft, 50; adulterated, 
14-39; denatured, 65-116; 
raw, 118; enjoyable plain, 
52; importance of variety, 



206; cheap nourishment, 
190; (see meats, vegetables, 
fruits, cooking, pure food, 
etc.) ; why cost increases, 

554- 

France: poule de Bresse, 69, 
220; marketing poultry, 74; 
cook books, 147; respect 
for cooks, 155; society 
women in the kitchen, 156; 
kings as cooks, 159; culin- 
ary supremacy, 210-238; 
lessons in economy, 211; 
stock-pot, 212; soups, 212; 
sauces, 215; poultry, 220; 
use of vegetables, 243 ; 
restaurants, 244 ; fruit, 
247 ; culinary word lan- 
guage, 253 ; Russian and 
American influences, 255 ; 
provincial flavors, 262 ; 
central market place, 267 ; 
fish, 275; marketing, 277; 
market gardens, 278 ; mush- 
rooms and truffles, 280; 
fancy fruits, 284; bread, 
285 ; bakers, 291 ; best but- 
ter how made, 292 ; cheese, 
303 ; learned from Italy, 
309; olive oil, 311; fond- 
ness for pork, 417; inten- 
sive gardening, 557. 

Freezene, 17. 

Frogs, 310. 

Fruits, canned, 31; raw, 117; 
in France, 285 ; England, 
432; United States, 496; 
Burbank's improved, 517," 
cold storage, 538; pre-cool- 
ing, 5391 (see apples, 
peaches, etc). 

Frying, 132, 316. 



590 



INDEX 



Game, in Germany, 365 ; 
England, 421 ; United 
States, 478. 

Garlic, 264, 336. 

Gastronomy: Preface, 43, 61, 
64, 189-190, 231, 260, 394, 
502, 526. 

Geese, 344, 368. 

Genius and kitchen problems, 

^ 161. 

Germany: cook books, 146; 
traveling cooking schools, 
176; peasants and veg- 
etables, 177; use of French 
words, 253 ; butter, 301 ; 
cosmopolitan cuisine, 339; 
delicatessen stores, 341 ; 
sauerkraut, 343 ; sausage 
and smoked ham, 345 ; 
live fish in kitchen, 355 ; 
fish ponds, 360; game and 
geese, 362 ; Berlin market, 
371; bread, 373; menus on 
land and sea, 378, 382; 
cheeses, 385 ; opposition to 
frozen meats, 403 ; pork, 
416; parcel post, 553. 

Gladstone, 43, 437. 

Gluten, 320. 

Gluttony, 52, 188, 397, 576. 

Gooseberries, 436. 

Governmental Gastronomy, 
502. 

Grapefruit, 433. 

Grapes, 497, 518. 

Gravy, 131. 

Greenhorns, 530. 

Griddle cakes, 459. 

Grieg, 341. 

Grill, 130. 



Guinea fowl to replace game, 

477- 

H 

Hale, J. H., 537. 

Ham, smoked, 66, 97, 351. 

Hamburg, 358. 

Harland, Marian, 151, 157, 

167. 
Harvey, Fred, 5. 
Hawaiian Pineapples, 533. 
Hawthorne, Hildegarde, 241. 
Hayward, H., 114, 116, 298. 
Herrick, Christine Terhune, 

151, 167. 
Hill, J. M., 167. 
Holland, cheese, 390. 
Honey, 14, 543. 
Hors d'oeuvres, 256. 
Howells, W. D., 328. 
Hungary, 374. 
Hunt, C. L., 132, 137- 



Indians and vegetables, 452, 
462. 

Italy: cook books, 147; cradle 
of modern cookery, 309 ; 
olive oil, 311; sardines, 
314; fried foods, 316; 
macaroni, 319; cheese in 
place of meat, 328; absti- 
nance, 329; birds, 334; gar- 
lic, 336; tomatoes, 337. 



Jiiger, G., 566. 
Jams, 437. 

Japan, 304, 325, 579. 
Johnson, Samuel, 396. 



INDEX 



59i 



K 



Kant, 61, 572. 

Kellogg, J. L., 89. 

Kitchen: society women in, 
157, 169; royalty in, 158; 
private, vs. community, 
197; electricity in, 200. 



Lakey, Alice, 21, 105. 

Lane, Mrs. John, 433. 

Langworthy, C. F., 132, 137. 

Lemons, 231, 541. 

Lettuce, 233. 

Lobsters, 480. 

London : markets, 423 ; res- 
taurants, 441 (see Eng- 
land). 

Looking down on others, 165, 
205. 

M 

Macaroni, 319. 
McCann, A. W., 35, 38. 
Magazines, helpful, 186. 
Malaria, 563. 
Mangoes, 507. 
Maple syrup, 462. 
Marketing, in Paris, 266; 

Berlin, 371; London, 279. 

423, 429. 
Mark Twain, 3, 367, 452, 

466, 516. 
Marmalades, 437, 562. 
Marriage and food, 153. 
Mastication, 49. 
Mate, 580. 

Maxwell, W. H., 171. 
Meat: economical use of, 137; 



eating in the future, 139; 

less nutritious than cheese, 

330; smoked (see smoked) ; 

frozen, 76, 402 (see beef, 

mutton, &c). 
Melons, 494, 542. 
Men: blameworthy, 13; way 

to heart of, 153; in kitchen, 

159-163 > medical, 166; as 

cooks, 173. 
Mexico, 5, 531. 
Middlemen, 553. 
Milk, 107, 548. 
Mitchell, M. J., 151. 
Munich, 379. 
Murray, 126. 
Mushrooms, 280. 
Mutton, 82, 403. 

N 

Naples, 326. 
Napoleon, 51. 
Netter, G. G., 34. 
Newnham-Davis, Col., 216, 

262, 265, 311, 448. 
New Orleans, 239. 
Norway, 436. 

Nose, seven functions of, 569. 
Nuremberg, 349. 
Nuts, 500, 508, 517. 

o 

Odors, gastronomic value of, 

63, 559-581. 
Oleomargarine, no. 
Olive oil, 228, 311, 315. 
Oranges, 541. 
Oregon, 8, 483, 546. 
Osmosis, 81, 82, 91. 
Oven taste, 131. 
Oysters, 86, 428, 487. 



592 



INDEX 



Paderewski, I. J., 158, 164, 
259, 285, 435, 488. 

Palatability (see flavor). 

Pancake, French, 246. 

Pancreas, 225. 

Paper-bag cookery, 148. 

Parcel Post, 553. 

Paris restaurants, 244 (see 
France). 

Parloa, Maria, 127. 

Pasteurized cream, for butter, 
298. 

Pate de foie gras, 370. 

Pawlow, Prof., 55, 225, 290, 
561. 

Pawpaw, 502. 

Peaches, 68, 530, 531, 536. 

Peanut butter, 133. 

Pears, 527. 

Perfumery, 570. 

Persimmon, 500. 

Petite marmite, 250. 

Pickles, 343. 

Philadelphia, 550. 

Physicians and cookery, 167. 

Pies, 466, 560. 

Piesse, C. H., 564. 

Pigs: wild boar's meat, 82; 
for bacon, 411; fair play 
for, 418; dairy farming and, 
415; (see pork, ham, ba- 
con). 

Pineapples, 532. 

Pleasures of the table, 41-64. 

Plum pudding, 443. 

Plums, 512, 517. 

Pork, increasing popularity of, 
417. 

Portland, Ore., 10. 



Potatoes, 320, 495, 513. 

Poultry: cold storage, 69-74; 
future of, in America, 72 ; 
marketing in France, 74 ; 
undrawn, horrors of, 76; 
why do we eat ? 79 ; 
French varieties, 220; tur- 
keys and guinea fowl, 473 ; 
feeding flavor into, 546, 
552. 

Powell, E. P., 198, 497. 

Preservatives, chemical, 28-39, 

40, 35i. 
Psychology of eating'; 61. 
Pure food experts, school girls 

as, 528. 
Pure Food laws, 31, 34, 342, 

352. 

Q 

Quince, Burbank's improved, 
516. 



R 



Raw foods, 30. 

Restaurants: in Paris, 244; 

Munich, 379; Berlin, 381; 

London, 447. 
Rhubarb, Burbank's 515. 
Rice, 67. 
Roasting, 130. 
Rogers and Gray, 300. 
Romans, ancient, 309, 551. 
Ronald, Mary, 146, 167, 317, 

318. 
Rorer, Mrs., 167. 
Rossini, 163. 
Ruskin, 42. 
Russia, 55, 226-256, 283. 



INDEX 



593 



Sage, Mrs. Russell, 478. 

St. Louis, 486. 

Sala, G. A., 424. 

Salads: digestive value of 

sour, 224; dressing for, 

224-232 ; best varieties of, 

232-241 ; fruit, 242. 
Salt, 142, 560 (see taste). 
Sardines, 314. 
Sauces, 142, 215. 
Sauerkraut, 343. 
Sausages, 345. 
Scallops, 488. 
Schoolgirls as food experts, 

528. 
Schools: cooking in, 171, 177, 

181; teaching the art of 

eating, 187. 
Scotch marmalades, 437. 
Sewage and oysters, 87, 428. 
Sicilian cooking, 310. 
Smell, sense of, 61, 63, chapt. 

XIII. 
Smoked meats and fish, 66, 

97, 245, 344, 350, 4i4> 

427. 
Snails, 276, 310. 
Soldiers as cooks, 173. 
Sole, 426. 
Soup, 123, 212. 
Sour (see taste). 
Spain, 147, 230, 336. 
Spices (see condiments). 
Steaming, 129. 
Stewing, 134. 
Stock-pot, French, 211. 
Strassburg, 370. 
Strawberries, 435, 511. 
Sweet (see Taste). 



Switzerland, 374, 386.. 
Syrup, 461. 

T 

Table d'hote, philosophy of, 

58. 
Tangelo, 508. 
Taste, sense of, 59-64, 559- 

566. 
Tastes, quarreling about, 574. 
Tea, 575. 
Terrapin, 549. 
Thackeray, 53, 265, 394. 
Thomspon, Henry, 125, 136, 

152, 207, 323. 
Toast, 290. 
Tobacco, 568, 571. 
Tomatoes, 236, 337, 431, 492. 
Truffles, 280. 
Turkeys, 473, 552. 

U 

Urbain-Dubois, 147. 

V 

Variety, 118, 206, 535. 

Veal, 372. 

Vegetables : raw ; 117; value 
of, lies in flavor, 124; how 
to cook, 128; combined 
with meat, 134; as separate 
course, 243 ; in Paris mar- 
ket, 268 ; mostly water,, 
279; in London, 430; 
United States, 490; gain- 
ing ground, 490; weeds as, 
505 ; improvable, 523 ; dan- 
gerous colors in canned, 
530. 



594 



INDEX 



Vegetarianism, 141. 
Venice, 324, 328. 
Venison, 365, 422. 
Vinegar, 32, 62, 224, 227. 

W 

Wallace, R., 410. 
Warner, C. D., 5. 
Washington State, 10, 483, 

546. 

Webster, E. H., 106, 294, 
300. 

Weeds as vegetables, 505. 

Wiley H. W.: on badly 
cooked food, 5 ; " honey," 
14; poison squad, 24; con- 
diments and chemical pre- 
servatives, 28 ; canned 
fruits, 31 ; Referee Board, 
36. 39 5 cold storage de- 
creases palatability, 72 ; 
drawn poultry, 80; fresh 
poultry, 84; oysters, 91; 
butter, 113; soup stock, 
123; vegetables, 124; meats 



as condiments, 140; veg- 
etarianism, 141; oil, 229; 
mushrooms, 282; fresh fish, 
361; syrup, 462; mince 
meat, 571 ; eating with the 
eyes, 524; colored butter, 
525 ; dangerous coloring 
matter, 530; canned fruits, 
535; flavor in pork, 549. 

Wilson, Mrs. Woodrow, 169. 

Wine, bouquet of, 576. 

Wives, and cooking, 153, 
182. 

Women : are they to blame ? 
11; as writers of cook 
books, 167; social caste of 
cooks, 154; queens and 
society women in the 
kitchen, 158; having an ap- 
petite, 179; beauty and 
olive oil, 230; commercial 
opportunities for, 545 (see 
wives, schools, cooking, 
etc.). 

Wright, H. S., 167. 



R 23 1913 



